


The Tribes of Vex 7

by orphan_account



Series: Series 12B [3]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Earthquakes, F/F, Found Family, Future, Future Human Colony, Mining Operation, Minor Character Death, She's not a fan, The Doctor is called out on her morals, Volcanic Eruption, War, space travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:27:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 31,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23559835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The Doctor takes her fam, Clara and Junia to explore the snowy planet of Vex 7. What starts as an innocent trip quickly turns sour and the Doctor has to negotiate a peace to avoid an inter-species war. With time ticking away, any second could be the last for the crew of the SS Raven, the Bracken, and the Doctor's friends.Updates on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald
Series: Series 12B [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685122
Comments: 35
Kudos: 23





	1. Prologue.

“Kailan, you’re late.”

“Captain.” Kailan smiled, jogging down the three steps and glancing at Stephanie as she looked at him sternly. He raised his eyebrows before her frown broke into a smile of her own, and he settled in the seat beside her. “Had to switch out a pipe,  _ won’t happen again _ .” He teased lightly, glancing out the window and looking at the planet below.

“We’ll be making our landing approach today, Kailan. I trust you’re happy to co-pilot? Layla and Celeste have identified the best landing spots from our orbit and the sooner we get down and start work, the happier I’ll be.”

“Of course Captain.” He agreed. “I’ll relay communications back home, let them know of our plans and tell them we’ll be out of contact for a few days. I’ll prepare our systems for landing, too. Anything else I can do for you?” He asked.

“Make sure mission control say hello to my girls.” Stephanie smiled, a more Human side of her showing at her request. “Tell them that their mother misses them.”

“Of course, Captain.” Kailan nodded, bringing two fingers together and pressing them to his forehead in a mock salute. Stephanie laughed at him for that.

“You’re awfully lucky I don’t mind about formalities, Kailan.”

“Wouldn’t have agreed to the trip if you were - one of us would’ve been thrown into a vacuum about 14 months ago.”

“Try 14 and a half.” She gave him a smile, dismissing him with a wave of her hand as she focused on the screens before her. Stephanie pulled up a map of their desired landing spot, reducing the thrusters so the ship just remained in orbit. Once her crew were all awake they’d land and take preliminary readings from the planet’s surface before the sun fell below the horizon. 

_ Vex 7  _ was a cold planet, covered in a deep layer of snow and ice, but the rovers that had explored the planet before had found it rich with metals, minerals, and compounds that Humanity desperately needed. A mining operation had been proposed by the planet’s Governors and a mission immediately put into action. The planet was cold, but had all the properties needed to sustain life and that meant that it could be stripped of its resources with minimal effort. 

Stephanie never liked the sound of it, but her crew were only there to establish the base - they’d be off the planet before the real mining work started and she could return to her family. Satisfied with the information she’d scanned over, she allowed herself a moment to think of her family and brought a video of them onto the screen. She pressed play and clasped her hands together, fingers entwined with each other as she rested on her gloved hands and watched their faces waving goodbye. She could see the tears in Casey’s eyes as she kept herself strong for their daughters - Alyssa, their youngest, was crying and Maria was trying her hardest not to. Being away from one of their mothers for 5 years was a lot, and Stephanie hadn’t taken the posting lightly, but the money had been too good to refuse. They’d needed it, desperately, especially after Casey’s father had died. 

Just under 4 years and she’d be home. And she couldn’t  _ wait _ .

“Good morning, Captain.” 

Stephanie was pulled from her thoughts by the voice of Rizwaan, turning her seat and facing him. He could see how tired she looked, but he didn’t mention it.

“The crew’s gathered for breakfast, if you’d like to join us?” He asked.

“Of course, I’ll be along in a minute. Wouldn’t miss your cooking for the world.” She replied, waiting for him to leave before turning back to take one last look at her family. Seeing them waving goodbye to the  _ SS Raven _ one last time before she closed the video and stood up. Taking one last look out of the window she joined the rest of her crew in their small living quarters: Javier, Rizwaan, Layla and Celeste were sitting together eating their breakfast with a space left for Stephanie and Kailan. She sat herself beside Layla, smiling at the young woman as she helped herself to a bowl of porridge and topped it with preserves.

“Is Price not joining us?” Javier asked, gesturing to the empty seat next to him as he nursed his coffee. 

“I’m sure he will once he’s finished preparing our systems. We’re landing today.” Stephanie announced. “No atmospheric disturbances, and it’s early in the day so we’ll have plenty of time to establish ourselves before night falls. Having a little extra fuel will serve us well.” She said, the team nodding in agreement through their breakfasts.

“Kailan will co-pilot, Rizwaan I’d appreciate if you could keep an eye on the monitors for any signs of life, make sure if there  _ is  _ something it’s not going to kill us the moment we land. Javier, you’ll be working with Layla and Celeste to prepare them for the initial exploration. All the equipment will be charged and everything should be safe and ready to go, but an extra pair of eyes to make sure the women are safe would be good.” She said, turning to Layla and Celeste. “We’re just doing some preliminary scans today, if you could digitally survey a square kilometer around the landing site we’ll have an idea of what direction to take ourselves in and where best to establish a permanent presence. We can worry about semantics tomorrow, but anything you can get to us by nightfall will be brilliant.” 

“Yes, boss.” Layla said, Celeste nodding eagerly. The crew ate the rest of their breakfasts in silence as they considered their plans for the day, Kailian joining them shortly after and helping himself to fruit and coffee, hardly commenting outside of a muttered  _ ‘almost tastes like the real thing’ _ .

An hour passed as the crew readied themselves for landing, Stephanie and Kailan gradually guiding the ship to land as Rizwaan kept them aware of their surroundings, scanning for heat sources beneath the ship. The landing went smoothly and the sun hadn’t quite reached its peak for the day when Celeste and Layla began their work on the surface. The two went in opposite directions with communicators keeping them in touch with the ship and each other. 

Everything was going smoothly. Until, naturally, it wasn’t.

“Captain?” Celeste’s voice came through the ship’s intercom and Stephanie was quick to answer.

“Hi Celeste, everything alright out there?”

“I saw something in the trees, just wondered if there’s anything appearing on your scanner? I don’t want to disturb the wildlife.”

Stephanie huffed a slight laugh at the idea of a mining operation preserving the natural habitat, but pulled up a scan of the nearby area. It began to update, the hot-spot of the ship appearing first, the heat map widening to include Celeste and Layla’s signatures, before widening further.

“There it is again, I can work around it if it’s just one thing.”

“Looks to be a group - much more than just one - might be worth heading back in case they’re hostile. We can make a note of it and try to avoid the area, Layla’s path looks clear. Can you confirm?”

Stephanie waited for Celeste’s response for a few moments, frowning when she didn’t receive it.

“Celeste, come back to the ship - confirm?”

There was a beat, and then a blood curdling scream. 

“Celeste, answer me!” Stephanie said, getting to her feet immediately. 

“I can see her!” Layla’s voice came through the communicator, panicked. “Something’s attacking her.”

Stephanie swore loudly, running through the tight corridors of the ship. As she ran she grabbed a gun, not bothering with a coat.

“Boyce, get a bed ready!” She called to Javier, opening the doors of the loading bay and jumping straight into the snow, not bothering to wait for the ramp to descend fully as she ran towards Celeste. Layla ran faster, better equipped for moving in the snow, and she reached Celeste quickly. Trying to ignore her friend’s pained screams she grabbed a tight hold of the creature on her - vaguely Humanoid, blue and white with bat like ears - pulling it away from Celeste. As she did, the creature stood up quickly and Layla was thrown off balance, falling back into the snow. While it eyed her up, Stephanie shot at and lodged a bullet in its arm. It looked at her angrily, tongue clicking angrily as it tried to communicate. Not being able to understand it, Stephanie fired a second shot - straight into the creature’s temple - and watched it fall back into the snow. Dead.

She made her way to Layla’s side, the woman breathing heavily and sitting up to indicate that she was unharmed, before moving to Celeste.

The younger woman’s eyes were wide and panicked, her breathing shallow and quick as she looked up at Stephanie. Behind her, Kailan and Rizwaan were running with a stretcher, and Stephanie ushered them over.

“Come on, we’ll get you inside.” She said. She observed her injuries, deep cuts covering her face - a gash on her forehead with blood dripping over one eye - and shallower cuts on her neck and right arm. She was lucky to come away with injuries they could tend to, and Stephanie let Kailan and Rizwaan lift her onto the stretcher and take her back to the ship where Javier would be able to tend to her wounds. She looked at Layla, offering the woman a hand to take as she stood up.

“What the hell was that thing?” She asked breathlessly, and Stephanie shrugged. The corpse of the creature was at their feet, but she was concerned. The heat map had shown far more signatures, and the creature had sounded like it tried to cry out in its language before she’d had the chance to kill it.

“Guess we should find out.” She said. “Head back to the ship, I’ll bring this thing inside and have Javier take a look once Celeste is in a better condition.”

Layla nodded, doing as she was instructed. Stephanie remained outside for a moment longer, taking a deep breath before sighing. She had a strange feeling this mission wouldn’t be going as smoothly as advertised.   



	2. I.

The Doctor was trying her hardest to mask her emotions and feign enthusiasm for the sake of her friends. She had Junia on her back, gurgling and mumbling as she kept trying to communicate. The Doctor could understand her even if the others couldn’t, and the little girl’s endearing comments about  _ Auntie Yaz  _ and  _ Grandpa  _ were enough to make her smile, even if she didn’t want to. Junia was dressed in a snowsuit and, despite not feeling the cold, the Doctor had put a bobble hat on - mostly for her daughter’s entertainment. Her companions had all dressed in something warm as she’d instructed, and she pulled a lever down to land them before turning around to face them all. Junia leaned her head over the Doctor’s shoulder and grinned, her fingers opening and closing on her hands as if she were waving to them.

“So, where are we going?” Clara asked.  _ She  _ couldn’t hide her excitement, it had been too long since she’d been on a trip with the Doctor and she was thrilled.

“And it better be cold, I’m meltin’ in here with all this on.” Graham said.

“Little planet called Vex 7, beautiful place.” She told them. “Not the most creative name - 7th planet from a star named Vex. It’s cold, plenty of snow,  _ promise  _ you won’t be hot.” She said. As the TARDIS landed the Doctor made her way to the doors and pulled them open, smiling when she saw the snow falling around them.

“Ready, petal?” She said to Junia, her arms lifting above her head and reaching back a little to find her daughter’s hands, before she took a step out of the TARDIS and listened to the snow crunching under her feet. Yaz, Ryan, Graham and Clara stepped out around her and took in the view. The TARDIS had landed in a small clearing on the side of a hill, with rolling forests as far as the eye could see. Towering evergreen trees with branches covered in snow, and in the distance mountains climbing from a small lake until they disappeared in the clouds. 

“Wow…” Yaz whispered, appreciating just how beautiful and untouched the planet was. 

“Someone else likes it.” Ryan said, looking at Junia. Her face was aglow and she grinned, laughing as snow fell in front of her eyes. Her happiness was infectious and the group laughed, Ryan pulling her hood over her head so she didn’t get cold. 

“Let’s have a nosey, then.” The Doctor said, dropping her arms and starting on her way. Junia found the crunching of the snow under her feet hilarious and was quick to start laughing. The Doctor’s companions walked with her: Ryan picking up snow to play with and make Junia laugh even more; Yaz and Graham walking off to the side as he spoke to her; and Clara at the Doctor’s side, her knuckles grazing against the Time Lord’s as she experimented with the level of touch her new face was okay with. The Doctor looked at her, offering her a smile as she linked their fingers together and squeezed her hand, and Clara smiled back. This was exactly what she wanted.

“Thought I’d tell you before I told the Doc.” Graham said, hands in his pockets as he and Yaz wandered through the snow. “I’m gonna head home soon, let you kids travel with her without this tired old man.”

Yaz nodded at his decision, knowing it wasn’t really hers to protest. “We’ll miss you.” She said honestly. “I know you ‘n Ryan are family but it’s been  _ nice  _ having you around. The Doctor was right, we are a fam, it won’t be the same without you.”

“Yeah well, I’m gettin’ on a bit. Gettin’ a bit too slow to be running away from all these aliens.”

Yaz’s face changed at that, her brows furrowing as she looked at him. “What are you talking about?” She laughed quietly. “You’re not too slow.”

“It’s a convenient excuse, stops you from askin’ any more questions.” He replied, laughing along with Yaz - but the expression fell from her face. She couldn’t laugh, she was  _ concerned _ .

“Are you okay?” She asked quietly. “You don’t  _ have  _ to tell me, I don’t want to pry if you don’t want me to, but you’re our mate and I want to make sure you’re okay. Okay?”

Graham smiled at her sadly, his lips pursed together as he nodded. “Yeah.” He said, though his voice almost sounded strained. He didn’t want to tell them because he didn’t want them to worry - and if he wasn’t telling Ryan he  _ certainly  _ couldn’t tell Yaz. “Thanks, Yaz.” 

“Oi, you two are gonna get left behind.” Ryan called to them, the two of them walking just a little quicker to join the rest of the group. As Ryan turned his back to them, Graham kneeled down and scooped up a hand full of snow. Yaz knew immediately what he was doing and followed suit, the two of them forming snowballs in their gloved hands.

“Ryan?” Yaz called innocently, and as he turned around they both threw the snowballs. Yaz hit him in the shoulder, Graham square in the face, and they both stopped in their tracks laughing. Clara and the Doctor were a few paces ahead and turned around just in time to see Ryan forming a retaliatory snowball. 

Sensing the Doctor’s desire to join her companions, Clara let go of her hand and reached up to take Junia from her back. 

“Go on.” She said, holding the little girl close to her chest. “You’d better win, though.” Clara told her, and the Doctor scooped up a handful of snow as she went to join her friends. She looked down to Junia, her eyes following her mother as she ran to play, and she smiled. “She’s very silly, your mum.” Clara told her, and Junia looked to Clara as she began to speak softly into her ear. “She’s very kind, too. It’s why I love her so much.” She said. The time that had passed or the change of her face had done nothing to dampen Clara’s love for the Doctor, but she daren’t ask for that to be returned. 

Clara pulled Junia’s hood back down and leaned back slightly, letting her look up at the snow that was falling.

“I’m going to teach you a very important trick.” She said, and Junia’s attention was solely on her. Clara almost considered that the child could understand what she was saying. “You poke your tongue out, and you catch snowflakes - like this.” 

Clara demonstrated, tilting her head back, opening her mouth, and poking out her tongue. She watched as several snowflakes landed and melted. They tasted different to the snowflakes on Earth -  _ saltier _ \- and before long she felt Junia wriggling in her arms. The girl kicked her legs and waved her arms, one hand grabbing hold of Clara’s tongue and pulling on it.

“Ow!” Clara squeaked, one hand grabbing Junia’s wrist and taking her tongue out of her tight hold. “Okay Junia,  _ rule number one -  _ don’t grab people’s tongues.” She said. The child looked offended at Clara’s actions, her bottom lip wavering sadly. 

“Clara! Help!” The Doctor cried, and Clara looked up - Ryan, Yaz and Graham had ganged up on her and were pelting her with snowballs faster than she could fight back. Clara just laughed, no need to help. Instead she sat herself down in the snow to watch, Junia in her lap as she investigated her new surroundings. She kicked her legs and watched as snow bounced around by her feet, and she tried to lean forwards to get a handful. Clara held her carefully, lowering her to the snow but making sure she didn’t fall in face first.

Upon making contact with the snow she squealed, pulling her hand back, before repeating the motion. The Doctor turned around when she heard her daughter squealing, worried for a brief moment, before relaxing and smiling at how happy she seemed. Ryan, Yaz and Graham took advantage of her moment of vulnerability, each picking up armfuls of snow and approaching from behind. The trio dumped the snow on her head and Clara found herself laughing hysterically, falling back to lie in the snow (but careful to keep Junia upright) as the Doctor jumped out of her skin - trying to shake the snow from out of her clothes and hair.

“I’m not playing if you’re gonna do  _ that! _ ” She complained, wandering over to Clara and Junia as the three continued to laugh. Clara calmed herself down, taking a few deep breaths to ease her laughter as she let the Doctor take Junia into her arms. Junia gurgled a quiet response, burying her head into the Doctor’s neck.

“What do you mean,  _ other mum _ ?” The Doctor asked, listening to her little squeaks again and smiling softly at Clara. “Any complaints with that title?”

“Depends - is Graham  _ other mum  _ too?” She joked, bringing herself to her feet and looking at the Doctor - emphasising how serious she was. “I would love to be her mum, if you two are both happy with that. And if you actually want me to be.”

The Doctor’s face changed as she realised the significance of what she’d just said to Clara, shifting just a little where she stood. “I mean, I think it’s up to Junia who she wants her parents to be.” She said, trying to skirt around the subject. Clara deserved to hear how she really felt about her in a more private place, she still wasn’t very good with words but  _ that  _ was something she wanted to get right.

Clara nodded at the Doctor’s words, not pushing her luck for any kind of emotionally charged conversation as the fam wandered back over to join them. The Doctor could tell that she’d done something wrong in that moment - pulled the wrong face or said the wrong words - so she leaned forwards and pressed a gentle kiss on Clara’s forehead. The younger woman looked up at her and smiled gently, moving a hand to brush against the Doctor’s briefly when an ear-piercing scream cut through the air.

The group stopped, looking around for the source of the screaming, but saw nothing.

“This way!” The Doctor said, holding Junia close to her chest as she followed the direction the commotion was coming from. With one hand she crouched a little and grabbed some snow, bringing it to her mouth and placing it on the tip of her tongue, scrunching her nose at the lingering taste of salt. A little bit of context to the year would at least give her a hint of  _ what  _ could be in danger - and if they were running head-first into a similar fate.

“33rd century - that’s one of you lot screaming.” She called back to them. “One of Humanity’s early mining outposts, established in 3288 and functional for about 150 years, until the planet’s empty and you all move on.”

“You could sound a little less judgemental of us when we’re standing right here!” Yaz called, close behind the Doctor as she ran. “How far away could that sound have been?”

“Right, split up. Graham, Ryan, you two go together. Clara and Yaz stick with me.” She said, plunging her free hand into her pockets and pulling out a walkie-talkie, throwing it to Graham. “Give us a buzz on that if you get into trouble.” She told them, before turning away from them and leading Clara and Yaz away.

“Stay safe.” Ryan called back to them, Yaz sticking a thumb out as they disappeared.

# # # 

The wind was bitterly cold around Graham and Ryan. They’d walked a little way into the forest and while they were sheltered from the falling snow, the wind was picking up what lay on the ground and blew it into their faces. They imagined if they weren’t under the trees it would have been a blizzard, and it didn’t give either of them huge amounts of hope for finding their way out and back to the Doctor later - though neither of them dared to voice their doubts.

“Hello?” Ryan called, looking around for any sign of someone that was in trouble. Beneath the trees it was dark, and Graham pulled a little pocket torch out to shine in front of them so they could keep an eye on where they were going. 

“Look, I don’t want to be the one to say this…” Graham began.

“Then don’t.” Ryan said.

“I’m just sayin’, what if we find the thing that  _ made  _ someone scream like that, rather than the person that got hurt.”

“I said  _ don’t _ .” Ryan looked back to Graham, shoving his hands in his pockets to try and warm the tips of his fingers up again. “The Doctor would find us if somethin’ happened, she’s good at that.” He said. “She found you after you got exploded, and she saved me, we just have to trust her.”

There was a moment of quiet after Ryan spoke, before there was a rustle in the trees.

“Hello?” Graham called. “We don’t mean any harm, we heard someone screamin’. Is everythin’ alright?” He asked, Ryan glancing over to him. After there was no response and no further noise, he shrugged and the pair continued, feet crunching through the snow. There was another rustle and they stopped again, Graham shining the torch on the trees around them. He didn’t call out this time and the noise seemed to continue, but getting further and further away from them. 

“Whatever’s here doesn’t want to be found.” Ryan said, and Graham nodded in agreement. “We should get out of here, before it decides we’re a threat.”

The two of them turned away, glancing at the ground and finding their footprints in the snow. It wouldn’t take them too long to find a way out of the forest and then they could find the Doctor - wherever she was.

# # # 

Junia was fast asleep on the Doctor’s back, strapped back on her shoulders as the three women searched for the source of the screaming. They’d trekked down a small hill and into a valley, looking through patches of thick trees to try and find any traces of Humans.

“Doctor, through here, I can see something.” Yaz said, Clara and the Doctor turning to look in the same direction and spotting exactly what she was alluding to.

“A ship! Fantastic, five points to Yaz - keep up Clara.” She said, clasping her hands together and breaking out into a little jog. Clara looked at Yaz and she shrugged, the two of them smiling as they followed the Doctor through the trees.

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s settled down just yet.” Clara called.

“These must be the first people.” The Doctor replied. As she did the wind began to pick up and the snow falling around them started to fall thicker and faster. The three of them hurried their pace to arrive at the ship, the Doctor knocking on the hull and calling out.

“Hello? Anyone in there? We heard someone screaming.” She said. The residents of the ship quite obviously heard because before long they could hear footsteps and muffled voices, and the Doctor grinned back at her friends. She assumed that whoever was on board would be happy to greet them. 

She assumed  _ wrongly _ .

A gun was pointed at the three of them immediately and they each raised their hands instinctively. 

“We’re unarmed, don’t shoot!” Clara said, the Doctor and Yaz nodding.

“We just heard someone screaming, we thought someone was in trouble.” Yaz added. 

“And how do I know you’re not with them.” The woman holding the gun asked, looking at the three of them.

“Well, we don’t really know who the  _ them  _ you’re referring to are. If we  _ were  _ in cahoots with them, it would be useful to know.” The Doctor said.

“The things that attacked my crew.”

“I love a good thing.” She smiled, lowering her hands. “So ambiguous, could be anything! Promise we’ve not attacked your crew. I’m the Doctor, these are my friends Clara and Yaz, we were just on a trip here when we heard this  _ thing  _ attack your crew. Mind if we come onboard, it’s very cold out here.”

The woman hesitated, lowering her gun and holstering it at her side, gesturing her head for the three to enter.

“This doesn’t mean I trust you.”

“Oh, and if two blokes called Ryan and Graham come this way, don’t point a gun in their faces either - they’re with me.” She said, wandering up the ramp of the ship with Clara and Yaz in tow. “Who got attacked? Where are they?”

“One of my geologists, the thing came out of nowhere and clawed her face half off. Our medic’s been looking after her, she’ll be fine. Mostly.”

The Doctor frowned.  _ Mostly.  _ It was a phrase that never particularly filled her with confidence. 

“Mind if I take a quick look? Like I said, I’m the Doctor.” She flashed the woman a smile, and she eyed the Doctor suspiciously for a moment before leading them through the ship. 

They found themselves in an open plan room - a small cooking area, a dining room, and a recreational area all rolled into one - and the woman stopped in her tracks and turned back to face the three.

“I’m Captain Stephanie Wynn of the SS Raven, this is my crew. Kailan Price, Rizwaan Avalos, and Layla Callaghan.” She said, gesturing to the three people sitting behind her. Rizwaan sat beside Layla, the woman huddled in a blanket and resting against his side. Kailan, meanwhile, was reading through the data that had been gathered earlier. “We’ve been sent to establish an outpost for a mining colony on this planet.”

“Hi.” The Doctor waved, Kailan looking up from his tablet and Rizwaan and Layla turning their heads to look behind them. “I’m the Doctor, that’s Yaz and that’s Clara. Oh, and this one--” She turned around, pointing out the sleeping infant on her back. “--My daughter, Junia. You said one of your crew was attacked?” The Doctor asked, looking to Stephanie expectantly.

“I’ll take you to see her.” She nodded. The Doctor looked back to Clara and Yaz.

“You two stay here, stay safe, and take this.” She threw another walkie-talkie their way. “If you hear from Graham and Ryan, let them in.” She instructed, leaving the room with Stephanie as Kailan went back to his work. Layla looked away from the pair and shifted a little closer to Rizwaan, who waved for Clara and Yaz to sit with them.

“She’s in shock.” He explained gently. “She and Celeste, our other geologist, were out running some preliminary scans when Celeste was attacked. Layla managed to get the creature off her.” He said, the two sitting opposite and frowning.

“Is she okay?” Yaz asked.

“She will be, she just needs to rest up a bit.” He said. “Celeste will be, too. I keep telling Layla that, I think that’s what she’s most worried about. They’re sisters.” He explained.

“She  _ will  _ be okay, Layla. I promise.” Yaz said, leaning forwards to try and reassure the woman. Layla managed to tear herself away from Rizwaan’s side and look at Yaz kindly for a moment, the ghost of a smile managing to appear on her face as she silently thanked the new woman’s appearance. Yaz gave her a smile in return, before she felt herself jolt in her seat.

The ship around them began to shake violently, several objects falling from tables and shelves, lights flickering on and off, before everything stopped and returned to normal. Clara and Yaz looked at each other with wide eyes, while the rest of the crew seemed unphased.

“Just an earthquake.” Kailan explained when no one else did. “Happens all the time, you’ll get used to it, nothing to worry about.” He said dismissively. 

Yaz looked at Clara for reassurance, and she simply offered a smile. But in the back of her mind, she couldn’t help but shake the feeling that it really  _ was  _ something to worry about.


	3. II.

“Bit of an earthquake?” The Doctor asked Stephanie, raising an eyebrow at her as they walked through the ship.

“It’s a hot spot, the planet’s geothermal activity has been increasing since we started our journey, but it was too late to abort the mission.” She replied. “Nothing to worry about, we’d know if there was.”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. Whenever someone said  _ nothing to worry about  _ she immediately found herself worrying more - and she racked her brains for any other knowledge on Vex 7. Anything  _ significant _ , anyway.

The ship was small and so they quickly found the medical room, the Doctor stepping in before Stephanie and raising a hand to greet the  _ conscious  _ being in the room.

“Doctor, this is Javier Boyce, our medic. Javier, this is the Doctor.”

“Thought we were the only ones here.” He said gruffly, but raised a hand in return as he focused back on studying the body that Stephanie had brought in earlier. The Doctor made a note of taking a look at it herself in a moment, but for now she looked to the unconscious girl on the bed. She had soft brown hair tied up in a ponytail, and her face was… Just as bad as Stephanie had said. The scratches were deep - thankfully not showing signs of infection - but clearly whatever had attacked her had done so with the intention to kill. The Doctor carefully traced her hand over her cheek and felt the rise and fall of the scabs.

“She’ll be lucky to see out of that eye when she wakes up.” Stephanie said. “She’s no stranger to injury, lost her arm in the war a few years ago, but that doesn’t mean I  _ like  _ knowing that this happened under my care.”

The Doctor paused, swallowing nervously. Stephanie’s words struck close to home and she couldn’t help but cast her mind back over the last adventure - everything that had happened to her friends. She had saved them, she always did, but how long until something like this happened to them? 

“She’ll be glad to have such a caring Captain then.” The Doctor said, taking out her sonic and buzzing the cuts to see if there was any trace left behind of what did this to her.

“We’ve been on this ship for a little over a year now, most of us left our families behind, except for Layla and Celeste. They’re sisters, travelling and working with them - we’re part of their family now. We all care for each other.”

The Doctor nodded, moving away from Celeste’s unconscious body to where Javier was dissecting the corpse of the creature that attacked.

“I shot it.” Stephanie admitted bluntly. “I’m not the biggest fan of killing, but that thing was going to kill my crew if I didn’t stop it.”

“I don’t like guns.” The Doctor said truthfully. “Always cause more problems than they solve. You won’t be using it again, understood?”

“I’ll do what I have to in order to protect my family, Doctor. I’m sure you’d say the same about yours.”

The Doctor turned to look at Stephanie, seeing a familiar look in her eyes. She couldn’t help but think the Universe was teasing her somehow - showing her someone that cared deeply for the people they were responsible for, someone with a morality they tried to follow but  _ couldn’t  _ because they had to make difficult choices. She felt Junia kicking a little in her sleep and her hearts sunk. Stephanie was right. She’d lost her daughter countless lifetimes ago, and now that she had her back she would stop at  _ nothing  _ to keep her safe.

“What is it?” The Doctor asked, turning back to Javier to avoid the confrontation.

“I’m not sure, a local. They must’ve seen the rovers we’ve sent to the surface over the last decade and kept out of sight. We’ve never seen them but we have seen traces of a somewhat primitive civilisation. We thought whatever was here was extinct, or of no threat to us.”

“Can I have a look?” She asked, and Javier took a step back. He placed his scalpel down and began to remove his bloody gloves.

“Be my guest.”

The Doctor rolled her sleeves up, her eyes glancing over the body. Two shots had been fired, neither had exited the body, and it seemed like the thing had died recently. At least that meant Stephanie wasn’t  _ lying  _ about the incident. The creature’s hands had three claws, retracted at the moment but on further examination they appeared to be slightly dulled after the attack on Celeste, and she couldn’t see any other sign of a fight. She took out her sonic, giving the creature a quick scan and awaiting the results impatiently.

“What is that device?” Stephanie asked.

“S’my sonic screwdriver, fantastic thing -  _ Sheffield steel _ .”

Stephanie looked at Javier and he shrugged, and she decided it might be for the best if she didn’t ask any further questions on the topic of the screwdriver.

“Where are you from, Doctor?” She asked. “We’re the first Humans colonising this planet, there should’ve been no one else here. Who  _ are  _ you and your friends?”

“Brilliant questions. I  _ love  _ questions. Starting to like you a little bit more - keep asking questions and I might even forget about the whole waving a gun in my face thing.” She said enthusiastically. Looking back down at her sonic she turned it round, upside-down, then tilted her head to the side to look at it with a frown.

“What’s wrong?” Javier asked. “Is it telling you something?”

“Yeah, it’s--”

The Doctor was cut off by a banging on the bottom of the hull. It didn’t sound like Graham or Ryan - they had very specific knocks that the Doctor had memorised so she knew who was coming into her TARDIS. The knocks sounded curious,  _ nervous _ , and were constant. 

“Must be the locals.” Stephanie muttered, her hand moving back to her side and grabbing her gun again as she left the room.

“No! No! I  _ just  _ said no guns!” The Doctor cried after her, looking back to Javier. “I  _ did  _ say no guns, didn’t I? That’s my seventeenth rule!”

Javier nodded, though this strange mad woman had run after Stephanie before she’d given him a chance to respond.

The Doctor ran through the ship to find Stephanie lowering the ramp with her gun loaded, aimed, and safety off. The Doctor followed her down and, when they approached the bottom of the ramp, quickly snuck around Stephanie so that she was between the Captain and these creatures.

There was a group of them - a group of three - vaguely humanoid creatures staring at them. They looked the same as the creature in the medical room had - blue skinned, with white painted patterns on. They wore skirt-like armour and chest plates, and each held a spear with a sharpened metal tip.

“Doctor, get out of the way, these things are a threat.”

“No, they’re not. You’ve got a gun and they’ve got  _ pointy sticks _ !” She said, looking over her shoulder to address Stephanie before she looked back to the creatures once more.

“I’m sorry about your friend.” She began slowly, speaking as gently as she could to try and coax them into a sense of security. As long as they held their spears and Stephanie held a gun, they had a problem. “There’s been a horrible misunderstanding. They hurt one of our friends badly and trigger happy over here tried to protect them. I’m so sorry, but your friend is dead.”

They hissed, tongues clicking away for a moment before the TARDIS translator kicked in.

“You  _ murdered  _ one of our kind.” One said, taking a step forward and raising the spear above its head. “You will  _ pay  _ for what you have done to our--”

The creature had no time to finish it’s sentence. Stephanie shot over the Doctor’s shoulder, hitting the thing square in the head and killing it in an instant. The Doctor gasped, her eyes widening as she turned around to face Stephanie and yell - but the creatures and Stephanie had a different idea.

“This means  _ war! _ ” One of the remaining two creatures hissed, and two more shots were fired. The creatures both fell to the group, dead, and Stephanie silently turned away from the Doctor and clambered back onto her ship.

The Doctor stared at what had been done, running over to the bodies and searching for a pulse in a vain hope that she would be able to do  _ something  _ to save them, but it was too late. They were gone. She retraced her steps back onto the ship, closing the ramp behind her and storming angrily to find Clara and Yaz. She wouldn’t stand for this, she  _ refused  _ to help people that were only going to keep making things worse.

# # #

“Yaz? Clara? Doctor?” Ryan said down the walkie-talkie, he and Graham wandering through the snow in the direction of gunshots. It almost made Ryan laugh - that their trips with the Doctor had made them instinctively walk  _ towards  _ danger rather than run screaming in the opposite direction - but with every second that past and they didn’t reply, he found himself more and more worried about them.

“They’re fine.” Graham said. “Busy dealing with whatever  _ that  _ was.” He explained, and as if on cue the walkie-talkie burst back into life in his hand.

“Ryan! Graham! Where are you? We’re leaving.” Clara’s voice came through the device and they looked at each other curiously.

“Leaving? I thought we were helping.” Ryan said.

“Not anymore!” The Doctor’s voice came through faintly - she must’ve been standing behind Clara. “These people are set on starting a full on war with the creatures of this planet, I’m not protecting people who won’t at least  _ try  _ to talk.”

Ryan and Graham looked at each other at the Doctor’s words, frowning when she mentioned a  _ war _ .

“Sorry, what?” Graham asked. “Because Ryan n’ I heard things movin’ about in the forest, are we safe?” He asked. 

“You should be fine.” The Doctor told him. “Should be. Come towards a big ship, can’t miss it, it’s the one with all the  _ bodies underneath - Stephanie! _ ” The Doctor shouted, and Graham winced. Whoever Stephanie was, he wouldn’t want to be her right now. “We’ll wait here for you.”

The walkie-talkie stopped making any sounds after that and Graham put it back in his pocket, scanning the horizon for a ship. The snow wasn’t helping things, it was almost impossible to see much further than their faces. 

“We’re never gonna make it.” Ryan said.

“Well we have to bloody try - if these people are startin’ a war then whatever they’re startin’ a war with is gonna want to kill us as soon as they see us, at least if we’re walkin’ through the snow we’ve got a chance.”

Ryan wanted to suggest anything else, because the idea of freezing to death in a blizzard simply wasn’t appealing to him, but Graham had already started on his way again and he didn’t want to get left behind.

# # # 

“I’m going out to find them.” Yaz stood up from where she and Clara had been sitting together. “It’s a blizzard out there, they don’t know where they’re going, they’ll never find their way here.”

“Going outside is a death sentence.” Stephanie warned.

“You’ve already signed death sentences!” The Doctor exclaimed. “For all of us, everyone that’s Human or Human-looking is going to be killed on sight, thanks to your  _ excellent  _ forward thinking,  _ Captain _ .”

“I’m going too.” Clara said. “If we both go, more likely we’ll find them. We can split up - we know where we’re trying to come back to. Doctor, you stay here. Someone needs to wait around for Graham and Ryan, and we can’t risk Junia out in the cold.” 

The Doctor looked at Clara with a strange feeling in her stomach. Pride? Pride that she’d worn off on her friend in the best possible way, but equally  _ concern  _ that she’d done so. Her friends should never become her, that was a burden she’d never wish on any of them.

“I’ll stay.” She agreed reluctantly, and the Doctor sat down. She lifted Junia from her back and held the girl in her arms. She was still sleeping, and the Doctor smiled at her gently. She’d keep her safe - that was all she had to remember. “Go on, be back soon. If you’re not, we’re all coming to find you.”

“Yes boss.” Clara teased. Yaz left the room to make her way back to the ramp and Clara approached the Doctor. She rested a hand on the Time Lord’s shoulder and pressed a chaste kiss to her lips. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” She warned, laughing a little before pulling away and heading after Yaz. 

The two women stood at the ramp as it descended, the full force of the snow making itself known. It was freezing, the wind was howling, and it was almost impossible to see.

“Pick a direction and go with it.” She instructed. “That way we can’t get lost, the ship will be right behind us no matter how far we walk.” 

Yaz nodded at the instructions, turning to the left and pointing. “I’ll go back towards the TARDIS. They can’t have gone too far past us.”

Clara nodded, deciding to walk forward and head straight. Eventually their paths would cross with Graham and Ryan. They had to.

# # #

Clara walked slowly, her arms wrapped tightly around herself and the crunch of the snow beneath her feet almost impossible to hear over the roaring of the wind. She’d found a tree line and, against her own advice, was now walking along it rather than in the direction she’d come from. The implications of the Master restarting her heart were still unclear, and she hadn’t had the chance to discuss it with the Doctor, but she knew that she had once been immortal -  _ roughly speaking _ . If that was still the case, she could afford to be caught out in the snow whereas Ryan and Graham couldn’t. Someone had to find them. Someone had to bring them home.

She had no idea how long she’d been walking when she heard a cry, and she stopped in her tracks. It didn’t sound Human and she was instantly on edge, afraid that the creatures of the planet had found her and were going to take some kind of revenge. 

And then she heard it again. The noise, categorically, was easy to distinguish.

It was a raven.

Clara froze, swallowing as she looked around her. A raven, that could just be a coincidence - it didn’t have to be… It  _ couldn’t  _ be… Except it could, she didn’t know, and she had no one to ask. No Doctor, no Me, no one that could offer her any insight into what this experience would involve. She turned around, looking behind her and taking a deep breath as she saw it. 

She only hoped enough snow would fall that the Doctor would never find her body, and that she wouldn’t have to say goodbye again.

# # #

The ground shook again and Yaz found herself struggling to stay on her feet, stumbling through the snow as she tried to walk. 

“Graham?! Ryan?!” She called desperately, one hand shielding her eyes from the falling snow as she tried to find her balance again. The Doctor was right, they needed to get off the planet as soon as possible. 

As the ground stopped moving she managed to stand up properly again, and she stopped moving forwards in favour of taking a moment to breath. It was then that she heard it, and her heartbeat quickened.  _ Crunching snow _ .

“Graham! Ryan! It’s Yaz!” She called, making her way forward again as she heard her name being called out faintly - the wind carrying their voices away from her. But they were  _ there,  _ and she found a surge of energy carrying her towards them. After a few more steps she could see their silhouette’s she stopped, urging them closer to her desperately. The wet of the snow was starting to sink through her clothes and her teeth were beginning to chatter. As soon as they were at her side, she yelled over the wind.

“We have to get back to the Doctor, she’s in a ship that’s straight behind us.” She pointed over her shoulder, telling them in case the visibility got any worse and they were separated. Not waiting for their response, and worried that any extra time they spent outside would only contribute to the three of them freezing faster, she turned and began to walk.

Ryan and Graham each had plenty of questions to ask about what was going on - who was hurt, what this  _ war  _ was, and if they were safe - but both had the sense to follow Yaz’s lead and wander silently after her. For now, they were just relieved that they’d found each other. 

They reached the small patch of trees that was near the ship quickly, and walking became easier - the wind was still strong and cold but the trees offered some shelter and they were protected somewhat from the falling snow. With a brief respite from the elements, Ryan spoke up.

“What’s goin’ on?” He asked. “Why’s there a war?”

“The Human’s that landed here were attacked, the Doctor spent some time with the Captain and she came back furious. She didn’t tell us what happened, but said as soon as you two were back--”

Yaz stopped in her tracks, turning around and looking up.

“Did you two hear that?”

“Hear what?” Graham asked.

There was a rustling above them and Graham and Ryan joined Yaz in looking upwards into the trees. 

“I don’t think that’s the Doctor come to surprise us…” Ryan said quietly, the rustling louder this time. It was getting closer.

“This is when she’d tell us to run, right?” Graham asked.

“Run!” Yaz yelled, and the three of them quickly started back in the direction they’d been going. They were close enough to the ship that they could see a faint outline through the snow -  _ safety _ . Ryan was the first to run out of the trees, with Graham close behind him, and Yaz behind him. The two men continued to run before they heard a scream behind them and their heads jolted back to see a creature with its claws around Yaz’s ankles, pulling her to the ground.

“Yaz!” Ryan called, both he and Graham turning to run back and help her. “Yaz! Hang on!”

“Ryan!” She yelled back, her hands scrambling for traction on the snow, legs trying to kick out of the creature’s grasp, but she felt its claws dig deeper into her ankles as she protested. These things were adapted to living in these conditions, and she was already exhausted and weak from walking through the blizzard. She was dragged away from them faster than they could follow and while she kept calling out for them - and they kept calling to her - their voices and faces were soon lost. 

“What do we do?” Ryan asked, looking around desperately for a trace of where Yaz had been taken, but the winds had shifted enough snow quickly enough to cover any tracks that had been left behind.

“Get to the ship, find the Doc. She’ll have an answer.” Graham said confidently. He put a hand on Ryan’s shoulder and the younger man looked up to him. “Come on, let’s get back before somethin’ grabs us too. Telling the Doc is Yaz’s best chance.”

Ryan nodded, walking quickly back to the ship at Graham’s side, but he couldn’t help the sinking feeling in his stomach as they turned their backs on Yaz.


	4. III.

The Doctor heard the knock at the door the same time that Stephanie did, and she quickly stood up as she saw the woman reaching for her gun.

“Those are my friends, you do  _ not  _ shoot my friends.” She ordered. Stephanie visibly relaxed, and once the Doctor was certain she wouldn’t change her mind she wandered through the ship to open the doors. She’d been worried sick and forced herself to focus on Junia to save herself pacing straight through the ship, and when the ramp descended and she saw Graham and Ryan enter she was momentarily relieved. She quickly gave them both a hug, pulling back and pulling a face as she felt how cold and wet they were.

“Doc--” Graham said, glancing at Ryan before he continued, though he could see in her eyes that she was already starting to put the pieces together.

“Yaz got taken by somethin’.” Ryan finished. “She was bringing us back but this thing, it just grabbed her ankle and pulled her away. We couldn’t keep up.”

“Figured you’d be the best person to find it.” Graham said.

“And Clara?”

Ryan and Graham looked at each other blankly, before back to the Doctor as they shook their heads.

“She wasn’t there.” Graham continued. “Should she be?”

The Doctor took a step back, muttering something under her breath that Graham just  _ knew  _ was some kind of Gallifreyan curse. She closed the door behind them, taking one of each of their hands and bringing them through the ship. She could fix this, she  _ always  _ fixed things, though sometimes she really wished there were more than one of her to figure out how to solve the problems.

“Graham, Ryan, this is the gang. Trigger happy, Kailan, Rizwaan and Layla.”

Stephanie frowned at the name the Doctor had given her, before looking to Kailan.

“Take these two to Jaiver, they’ll freeze to death before long standing there.” She said, looking through the Doctor to Graham and Ryan. “Good that you’re safe, glad those things didn’t get to you.”

“Yeah, well they got one of my friends,  _ maybe two _ .” The Doctor said, taking a step closer and putting her face far too close to Stephanie’s. Stephanie, to her credit, didn’t flinch as the Doctor stared up at her. The Doctor tried her hardest to impart some of the guilt sitting on her shoulders to the Captain, not wanting to feel solely responsible for Clara and Yaz, but the Captain didn’t appear to budge.

“Just be glad we’re letting you stay. I could just as easily send you out into the blizzard and let you all die.” 

All eyes were on the Doctor and Stephanie, curious to see which of them would break first, but neither of them would budge. After several long moments, Kailan stepped between the two of them to force them apart and wandered over to Ryan and Graham, quietly taking them away from the scene. The Doctor took a few steps back from Stephanie, considering her next moves for a moment.

“I need your help.” She admitted, reluctantly. “I need to find my friends.”

“If they’re out in this storm much longer, they’ll be dead.” 

“You don’t know my friends.” The Doctor replied. “Clara will be fine, but I have to find Yaz if the Bracken have taken her.”

“The what?” Rizwaan asked, he and Layla still watching from where they sat.

“Oh, right, yes.” The Doctor said, spinning around as she took her screwdriver from her pocket and wiggled it around for them to see. “Had a cheeky scan. They’re called the Bracken, the native species of the planet. They’re hostile and tribal, and they’ve been fighting wars with each other for centuries, but you’ve just united them against a common enemy.  _ Humans _ .” She said, frowning again as she wandered towards Stephanie. “And what you have to understand is that these things won’t stop, now. They have Yaz - if they’ve taken her away I’m assuming, I’m  _ hoping  _ for your sake they’re holding her hostage - and they’ll come for the rest of you. I don’t know what they’ll do if they get to you, but you’re heavily outnumbered and your crew is injured.”

“You expect me to just stop shooting at them?” 

“In an ideal world, yes!” The Doctor exclaimed. “That would be  _ brilliant _ !”

“It’s not going to happen.”

“I was worried you’d say that.”

“If we let this escalate any further, then they’ll kill all of us.” The Doctor explained. “You might have guns against their spears, but you’ll run out of bullets eventually and the more of them you kill the angrier they’ll get. I need you to  _ try  _ to talk to them, to  _ reason  _ with them. Better yet, you could even  _ apologise  _ to them.” She said hopefully, but Stephanie’s expression didn’t budge. The Doctor sighed, her shoulders falling, when the floor beneath their feet rumbled once more. Briefly, this time, but still noticeable.

“We shouldn’t be here.” Layla said quietly from where she lay, and everyone turned to look at her. The Doctor quickly moved away from Stephanie and kneeled down before Layla, taking her hands in her own and looking up at her with a kind smile on her face.

“Good to hear you’re doing better.” The Doctor said, trying to coax her out of her shock just a little more. “You’re incredibly brave, Layla. Your sister’s gonna be so proud of you when she sees you. She’s just fine because of you.”

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t  _ lie  _ to my crew, Doctor.” Stephanie warned, but the Time Lord ignored her.

“Why shouldn’t we be here?”

“I can’t be sure, I’d need to see the data, but these quakes are in a pattern…” She explained. 

“Have we got--”

“No seismographs set up. Like I said, Celeste and Layla were out doing preliminary scans, we’ve got no permanent data recording things like that.” Stephanie explained, before the Doctor had a chance to finish her question.

“What does it feel like?” The Doctor asked, looking back to Layla. “Stab in the dark?”

“A warning.” She said softly. “Foreshocks, before a volcanic eruption.”

The Doctor leaned back on her heels and frowned, the forgotten knowledge of Vex 7 clicking into place. Geological activity, and what else was this year known for? She did her best to hide her worry, biting her tongue as she let go of Layla’s hand and stood up.

“You’re pulling a face.” Stephanie said.

“This planet is a ticking time bomb.” The Doctor said. “I need to find my friends before the place explodes, I need you to help me. I’ll do what I can to make the Bracken see eye to eye with you and cease this fighting, but I need you to work with me to do that. Once that’s all done you can leave this planet and come back when it’s safe, but you have to work with me.”

“My mission is clear, I’m not leaving this planet until my crew and I have established the colony and our replacement team arrives.”

“Can I have a word in private, Captain?” The Doctor asked, straightening her back to appear just a little taller as Stephanie gestured for her to follow her into another room. The Doctor walked with her, swallowing what she would  _ refuse  _ to call nerves back, waiting for the doors to seal behind them before she dared to speak.

“I’m a Time Traveller.” She said bluntly. “My friends and I travel through time and space in my ship, that’s how we got here. I’m old enough that even I’ve forgotten how old I am, and I can promise you, you  _ have  _ to get off this planet. I’d forgotten but that erupting that Layla is talking about - it’s  _ big  _ and it’s  _ bad  _ and if you stay here, you and your crew will die.”   
  


“And I’m supposed to just believe that?” Stephanie asked. “I have a job to do, I have to stay here. For my family.”

“You’ll never see them again if you stay.” The Doctor told her, and she could see that  _ that  _ got through to her. Her walls began to crumble, just a little, and her confidence waned.

“We’ll see about that.”

# # #

Yaz opened her eyes slowly, her head pounding as she did. Her wrists were shackled together and she was locked in some kind of cell, and while she was free to stand she couldn’t put weight on her ankle when she tried. She looked down, and even in the dark she could see the blood that soaked one of her feet. Her memories started to come back and she remembered the pain, the claws digging deeper and deeper into her ankles the more she struggled as she was dragged through the snow. Graham and Ryan disappearing - were they safe? Did anyone know she was gone? She shifted along the ground a little, her eyes squinting as she tried to make out her surroundings better. Was she underground? Despite the way her wet clothes clung to her body, she  _ felt  _ warmer than she had before, and assumed that she had to be in some kind of shelter.

She could see out of a little window in her cell, looking towards a group of creatures sitting and speaking, illuminated by candlelight. She was given some kind of hope that someone was coming for her because she could  _ understand  _ what they were saying - and if the TARDIS translation system was still functioning, then the Doctor was still on the planet.

“The woman we’ve found is their friend - she will do nicely.”

“We will keep her alive?”

“For now.” The first creature replied, and Yaz shifted back a little as they considered her worth.

“She  _ is  _ useful. They will come for her, we’ll outnumber them and kill them before they know what’s happening.”

Yaz gasped quietly, though clearly not quietly enough as the conversation ended and each creature sitting together turned to face her cell. Her eyes widened and she scrambled back, her ankle crying out in pain as she used it time and time again to push her further away from the window.

“She’s listening to us.” One said, and another stood - walking over to her cell and opening the small door. The creature ducked as it walked towards her and she tried to shift further back but to no avail - the creature grabbing her cuffed hands and hissing at her.

“Come with me.”

It was an order, rather than a request, and Yaz felt herself dragged to her feet. She let out a pained cry as she was forced to put weight on her ankle but the creature didn’t care, pulling her along to stand amongst the crowd. She tried to figure things out from her surroundings, but everything was still unclear to her. All she knew, with certainty now, was that she was underground. 

“Find me, Doctor… Please…” She whispered to herself, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.

“You will tell us what we want to know.” The creature said, staring down at her as she reopened her eyes. 

“I don’t  _ know  _ what you want to know, I’m just a traveller.”

“You’re one of them. You’ve invaded our world and killed our people.”

“I haven’t done anything! My friends were lost in a storm and I went looking for them.” She protested. If this was the treatment she received for her innocence in the situation, she somehow doubted that telling the full truth would bode any better for her.

“Prepare a messenger, send them with an army.” Her captor explained. “If they return missing so much as a single soldier, the girl dies.”

# # #

“So.” Javier said, wrapping a blanket around Ryan’s shoulders. Both Ryan and Graham had been given dry, warm clothes and blankets to help them warm up, and Javier set about preparing them a warm cup of coffee to drink. “Who are you really? Spies?”

“Spies?” Graham asked, laughing lightly. “Do we look like spies?”

“If a spy looked like a spy, he wouldn’t be a very good spy.” Javier said, turning away from them as he spoke. Graham looked to Ryan, who shrugged his shoulders.

“Are you a spy?” Ryan asked.

The chuckle that left Javier’s mouth didn’t sit well in Graham’s stomach, but he elected, for now, to ignore it. He’d talk to the Doc about it later. 

“Here.” Javier turned back around. “Drink this, it’ll make you feel a lot better. Once you’re both warmed up you should be fine.” He promised, handing them each a mug. Ryan glanced at Graham from the corner of his eye and watched him as he drank the coffee happily, before drinking his own. He couldn’t shake the feeling of suspicion he now held towards Javier.

Satisfied that both men were cared for, he turned around and resumed his work on dissecting the Bracken. Graham and Ryan both sat quietly, letting their bodies recover from the cold, when Celeste sat up.

“Celeste!” Javier said with a smile on his face, removing the pair of gloves he’d been wearing as he worked to sit at the end of her bed and offer her a little comfort. “How are you feeling?”

“I-- I’m alive?” She said quietly, blinking a few times as she adjusted herself to her surroundings. “I don’t remember…”

“You were attacked by the native creatures of this planet.” Javier explained gently. “Layla managed to get the creature away from you before it did any further damage, and Stephanie killed it before it could attack anyone else.”

“Is she--”

“Layla’s in shock, but she’s fine. No physical injuries. I think she’s just worried about you.” Javier explained.

There were a few long moments of silence between the pair, before Celeste closed her left eye and frowned.

“I can’t see.” She said, sadness in her tone. 

“It… The creature latched onto your face in its attack, I expressed my concern to Stephanie when I first examined what had been done that your vision could be altered or lost as a result.” He said gently, as gently as he could given the situation. “It’s certainly nothing we have the facilities to fix here, but perhaps when we return back home after this is all over someone will be able to restore your vision.”

Celeste reopened her left eye, looking at Javier and nodding. 

“I’ll let the Captain know you’re awake, she’ll want to speak with you herself.”

Javier left promptly after that, and Celeste took in a deep breath as she felt her eyes welling up with tears. She sniffled lightly, holding back a choked sob, when Ryan spoke up.

“Hey, it’s okay.” He said, and she suddenly sat up much straighter. She hadn’t seen them initially and was now scrambling to hide her emotions away.

“Who are you?” She asked uncertainly.

“I’m Ryan, this is Graham.” He nodded his head towards the older man sitting beside him, who offered a slight wave. “We were travelling and got caught up in a blizzard, we were lucky to find the ship. We’d’ve frozen to death out there.”

“Ryan.” She repeated quietly, offering him a small smile from where she sat. “I’m Celeste.”

“You’ve got a nice name.” Ryan replied, and Celeste laughed ever so slightly as Graham elbowed Ryan in the ribs and gave him a look. The look made Celeste laugh a little more as footsteps approached the room, and suddenly the small medical room became very crowded, very quickly.

“Celeste!” Layla said breathlessly, relief flooding through her body as she sat on the bed at her sister’s side, pulling her into the tightest hug she dared give knowing the injuries that her sister had sustained, and Celeste hugged her back tightly in return. The two of them shared a brief moment together before Stephanie addressed her.

“Plans have changed a little in the recent hours.” She said, and Ryan and Graham both heard a scoff that could only have left the Doctor’s lips. “We’re not going to be starting work on the outpost anytime soon, you need to spend the next few days resting and recovering. We’ll see what, if anything, we can do about your sight in the meantime.”

“What’s happened?” She asked. “Is everything alright?” 

“Nothing you need to worry about right now. Just focus on getting better.”

As they spoke, Graham and Ryan’s attention moved away from the conversation and towards the blonde woman squeezing behind the crowd of people to make her way over to them. The Doctor held a sleeping Junia in her arms and pushed the child into Graham’s, who instinctively positioned himself to make sure he was supporting her head.

“I’m going to go find Clara.” She said. “Once I have her back, we can figure out a way to get Yaz back.”

“She’ll be safe, Yaz, won’t she?”

“I can’t promise that.” The Doctor said honestly. “But we  _ will  _ get her back, that I  _ can  _ promise. Take care, if there’s anything that doesn’t look right we can talk about it when I get back. If Junia wakes up tell her I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“What about us?” Ryan asked.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” The Doctor smiled, and with that she turned on the spot before disappearing from sight.

# # #

The wind had lowered and visibility had, to some extent, returned. The Doctor no longer focused on the crunch of the snow beneath her feet, or the wind blowing her hair, she couldn’t  _ think  _ of those things while she didn’t know where Clara was. She  _ knew  _ Yaz’s situation, she knew her friend had been kidnapped and that, somehow, was easier. Her mind could begin to look for solutions. But Clara was an unknown, and that  _ terrified  _ her. She’d only just gotten her back, she  _ couldn’t  _ lose her again.

It was then that she saw her. Lying flat, buried in a thin layer of snow, and the Doctor’s hearts stopped in her chest. It couldn’t be, it  _ couldn’t  _ be, but what if it was? She felt sick, terrified,  _ confused _ , and her legs ran as fast as her mind could make them.

“Clara!” The Doctor cried, almost reaching for a pulse but realising just how  _ useless  _ that would be. Her legs buckled beneath her as the ground shook once more, and instead she cupped Clara’s cheeks with both hands, fingers running over the cold skin and searching for any sign of life.

“Clara,  _ please _ , my Impossible Girl. Don’t leave me now,  _ please _ .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter brought to you early by crippling insecurity and a need to be validated!
> 
> In all seriousness thank you to the handful of people still reading, I'm glad there's some people out there that value what I do. I'm somewhat reconsidering this being a series (and thinking that maybe I was just way more excited for it than other people were) so I'll be thinking over the next few days if I'm gonna keep writing. Don't worry, this story is finished! I'm just an insecure bean and realising that less people are reading this is making me second guess if people actually WANT me to continue this.


	5. IV.

Clara breathed in deeply as she sat up, the motion taking the Doctor by surprise as she jumped back in the snow, landing a few paces away and watching Clara’s chest begin to rise and fall as she desperately panted, sucking in air. A cold sweat formed almost immediately on her forehead and her eyes widened. As soon as the Doctor got over her own surprise she was at Clara’s side, her hands grabbing hold of Clara’s and lacing their fingers together.

“I’m here.” She said reassuringly, managing to get Clara to look at her. “I’m here, Clara,  _ breathe _ .” She instructed. She didn’t know if Clara necessarily  _ needed  _ to breathe, but she  _ was  _ breathing and encouraging her to keep doing so came naturally to her. 

Clara did as she was told, her mind racing to piece together what had happened. She’d been alone, she’d seen the raven, and now the Doctor was beside her trying to make everything better. For that, she was deeply grateful, and she felt her body sag forwards. The Doctor let go of Clara’s hands, instead pulling the young woman close to her chest and wrapping her arms around her tightly. Clara closed her eyes, burying her face against the Doctor and listening to her two hearts beating rhythmically. She felt safe, she never wanted the Doctor to let go of her.

“What happened?” The Doctor asked, and Clara shook her head.

“I don’t know.” She admitted honestly, only realising then just how  _ choked up  _ she sounded. Clara consciously forced herself to relax and immediately felt a sob leave her lips, her body curling just a little closer to the Doctor who seemed more than happy to hold her and offer comfort, her hand running up and down her back as she squeezed her tightly.

“I thought I’d lost you again, Clara.” The Doctor whispered, taking a deep breath of her own. “I thought… Clara, I  _ can’t  _ lose you.”

“I’m here.” Clara whispered against her, the words thick and heavy with tears. She couldn’t shake the image from her mind - the raven from Trap Street staring at her,  _ flying towards her _ , so far away from home.

“Let’s get back to the ship.” The Doctor said gently, standing up and helping Clara get to her own feet. She could see then just how  _ badly  _ Clara had been hurt - though there seemed to be no obvious physical damage. Her legs were shaking, her eyes were wide, and her grip was like a vice on her hands. It might have been a long time, but she had travelled with Clara and she knew her companion. Clara was brave, she was strong, and it must’ve taken something truly  _ awful  _ to upset her this much. “Are you sure you don’t know what happened?” She asked, her voice soft but laced with concern.

“Positive.” Clara whispered, swallowing and forcing herself to try and smile for the Doctor. “I love you.”

The Doctor looked at Clara through cautious eyes, a strained smile appearing on her face as she nodded sadly. 

“You’re in shock.” She said, leaning forwards to press a soft kiss against her forehead. The Doctor lingered there for a moment, enjoying the feeling of having Clara close to her once more, and Clara enjoying the feeling of the Doctor holding her so preciously. “Come on, let’s get you back to safety.”

Clara nodded, not protesting the Doctor’s orders as the two of them walked together back to the ship. The Doctor walked with one arm around Clara’s waist, supporting most of her weight as they approached the ship. She deliberately moved her hand to rest on more  _ neutral  _ territory as they returned, unsure of how overt Clara would want their feelings to be (especially since they had never truly had a chance to define their relationship in their years of travelling together). Clara stumbled a little as they walked up the ramp and the Doctor was quick to catch her, leading her through the empty corridors to the recreational quarters. 

“Take a seat.” She said, gesturing for Clara to sit down which she did - gratefully collapsing onto one of the sofa’s as her mind lingered on the topic of the raven. Graham and Ryan were nowhere to be seen, presumably still sitting in the medical room, and the Doctor took her time making Clara comfortable. The blanket that Layla had been curled under now draping over her companion, cushions rearranged to support her head, the walkie-talkie from her pocket left at her side and a packet of custard creams laid out as a snack. Clara couldn’t help but laugh at that.

“Is this how you flirt?” She asked quietly. “The first time you met me you took me to my bedroom, put me to bed, and left a plate of jammie dodgers.”

“Hundreds of years and you still remember?” The Doctor asked, perching herself on the edge of a seat and running a hand along Clara’s arm.

“Of course. How could I forget meeting you?”

“Oh, Clara.” The Doctor sighed softly, smiling down at her. “What would I ever do without you?”

# # # 

“She’s here.” Javier said. He’d stowed himself away in his personal sleeping quarters, the door locked from the inside as he sat against the far wall with a quantum communicator. His voice was scrambled dozens of times over, decoded in thousands of different languages, before reaching the intended recipient. Despite how long Javier had been working for him - or her - he’d never actually laid eyes on the person at the other end of the device.

“How many?” The voice replied, distorted and unidentifiable.

“The Doctor, a child, and four friends. Would you like her terminated?”

There was a long pause after Javier’s hissed words, and what sounded like either static or a sob.

“Keep the child alive and the Doctor alive. The rest are of no particular consequence.”

“Of course, my master.”

# # #

“You’re back.” Stephanie said, finding herself face to face with the Doctor in the recreational quarters. She was armed, heavily, clearly preparing herself for a fight. “You found your friend.”

“One of them.” The Doctor replied. “Yaz is still with them, you have to give me a chance to talk to them and get her back. I promise, I can fix this.”

Stephanie hesitated, and after a moment she took several steps towards the Doctor. Her boots landed heavily on the floor and every part of her uniform seemed to jingle from weapons, ammunition, and explosives. She sat opposite the Doctor, glancing at Clara for a moment before looking back to the Time Lord.

“Doctor…” Stephanie began slowly, her shoulders dropping as she tried to find the right words. Despite the fact that the two of them didn’t see eye to eye, she wanted to try and find some kind of common ground. Though perhaps that was the problem, that between them there was too  _ much  _ common ground and the Doctor didn’t like the reflection she saw. “I have a duty of care towards my crew, I cannot do anything that puts them at risk. Those creatures,  _ the Bracken _ , they are ready to declare war on our species and I cannot let that happen. I have to protect the people on my ship, I have to protect the Humans that come to the planet after us, that is  _ my  _ responsibility as Captain.”

“Your responsibility isn’t  _ genocide _ , Captain.” The Doctor replied bluntly. “I have lived for far too long, seen  _ far too much  _ war and pain and fighting to tell you that this approach will end well. It won’t work, it will  _ never  _ work, and by eliminating the chance to communicate you’re only putting your crew in more danger.” She said. “How do you want to be remembered, Stephanie? As a leader? As a Captain who  _ not only  _ protected her crew, but who also forged a new relationship with an alien species as an ambassador for Humanity.  _ Or _ , would you rather be remembered as the woman who murdered an innocent species, whose only fault was getting in the way of your desire for a hunk of metal.”

Stephanie found herself struggling to bite back her words, her jaw clenched and teeth scraping against each other as she searched for the right words.

“I know who you are, Doctor. You’re ingrained in the myths and legends of Humanity.” She said. “You change your face, but that doesn’t change who you are or what you’ve done. The stories of havoc you wreak across the Universe, the destruction you bring in your path in the name of protecting the Human race. Well for once, why don’t you let us make our own poor choices?” She said, getting to her feet once more. “People tell stories of the species you’ve wiped out. You’re only a hero in the eyes of those on your side.”

With that, Stephanie left, her attempt of a civil conversation left hanging in the air as the Doctor reflected for just a moment on her words.

Well, she wasn’t  _ wrong _ .

“Crew!” The Doctor heard Stephanie’s voice ringing through the corridor as she barked her orders at those that were fit enough to follow them. “Kailan, I need you to get on the scanners and track any incoming lifeforms - if we know how many are coming we’ll have a better chance of stopping them. Rizwaan, Javier, Layla, with me.” She called, and her footsteps mixed in with the others as they ran through the ship to prepare themselves.

“What’s goin’ on, Doc?” Graham asked, wandering into the room with Junia stirring in his arms. “They look like they’re going to bloody war!” He laughed.

“They  _ are _ .” The Doctor said, standing up and crossing the room to take Junia from him. She pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, holding the little girl close and taking in a deep breath. Junia gave her so much hope, so much  _ strength _ . Stephanie hadn’t been wrong - she wasn’t the glorious peacekeeper she thought of herself as - and maybe it was time to change that. She had to set a good example for her daughter, after all. Bringing one hand to her head, running softly through her hair.

“What’s the plan, then? How’re we gonna get Yaz back if there’s a war between us and her?”

“We’re going to be taken hostage.” The Doctor said, as if it were obvious, and Graham waited a moment for her to continue. When she didn’t, his eyebrows almost shot from his forehead.

“Sorry, is that  _ really  _ your plan?”

“If we’re taken hostage then they’ve got no choice but to talk to us. If you’ve not noticed, I’m  _ brilliant  _ at talking.”

“Certainly do a lot of it.” Graham quipped.

“If they take us hostage I can talk to them, get them to call off this war, and get everyone to safety and us off the planet  _ before  _ the volcano goes off.”

“Hang on, Doc, I think you’ve jumped a few steps ahead!”

“Right, sorry, forget not everyone’s here all the time.” She said. “All those earthquakes, Layla said they’re consistent with foreshocks before a volcanic eruption and she’s right, these people just don’t know how bad it’s going to be when it happens. We should never have come here, if we’re still here when it erupts we’ll all be gonners.” She said, the usual cheery tone that seemed to be ever present with the Doctor noticeably missing, and Graham took that as an understanding of just how grave the situation was.

“How long do we have?”

“Couple of days at most? The sooner we can leave, the better.” The Doctor said, and she felt Junia kicking in her arms. She could sense that  _ something  _ was wrong despite not being able to really communicate yet in this form. The Doctor gently ran her fingers through her hair, pressing another soft kiss to her forehead. “I know, petal. You’re safe, don’t worry.” She said softly. “Where’s Ryan?” She asked Graham, her voice returning to its normal tone.

“Still sitting where I left him. He’s  _ talking _ .”

“No time for talking Graham!” The Doctor said, and Graham laughed as the tension broke. The Doctor didn’t seem to capture the inflection in his voice indicating that it may be best not to interrupt the conversation, but the Doctor didn’t mind as she wandered through the small corridors to find Ryan exactly where Graham had said.

“Come on!” She hissed, looking between Ryan and Celeste. She gave the young woman a gentle smile, before focusing her attention on Ryan again. “We’ve gotta find Yaz.”

“She your girlfriend, then?” Celeste asked and the Doctor frowned.

“I certainly am not.” She said, and Ryan groaned a little as Celeste laughed.

“Yaz isn’t, either.” He explained to her quietly, standing up and giving her a small wave as he left. Celeste smiled at him as he walked away, and as soon as he knew he was out of Celeste’s earshot he practically glared at the Doctor.

“You really,  _ really  _ don’t get social cues do you?”

“Not my forte.” The Doctor admitted, clearly not picking up on Ryan’s tone once more. “Come on, friends to save, volcanoes to avoid, got a full itinerary planned for us.” The Doctor joked, rounding the corner with Ryan in tow. She walked straight past Graham, who mouthed a  _ sorry _ in Ryan’s direction, before approaching the half asleep Clara.

“You’re staying here.” She said softly, and Clara muttered some kind of protest that the Doctor wasn’t buying. “I need you to stay here, I need you to try and keep these people from murdering the Bracken. You’ve managed not to get yourself killed in 500 years of travelling, I’d like to think that means you’ve learned how to stall for time.” 

Clara sat up slowly, her mind beginning to calm again as she focused on the Doctor rather than what she’d just seen. The Doctor,  _ her Doctor _ , always so brave, so strong, so kind… A smile found its way onto Clara’s face and she leaned forwards, closing her eyes as she pressed the briefest of kisses to her lips.

“When I said I loved you, I meant it.” She said gently. “You’re going to do something stupid, I can see it in your eyes, so I want you to know before you do it.”

The Doctor smiled down at Clara, one hand moving to cup her cheek. She ran her fingers across her still cold skin and leaned to press another kiss to her forehead.

“I know you did.” She said quietly. “I love you, too. I have for… For so long I’ve lost track.” The Doctor said, and Clara shifted back a little. The Doctor’s last face had never been particularly  _ good  _ at handling emotions, she had never expected the Doctor to say it back to her. 

“If you’re doing something stupid, let me take Junia.” She said quietly. “I’ll keep her safe here.” 

The Doctor nodded, moving her hand from Clara’s cheek to look down at her daughter again. Junia was a patient little girl, so understanding of the struggles her mother was going through to keep as many people safe as possible, and was content as the Doctor carefully handed her over to Clara. Little fingers went to pinch the skin at Clara’s neck, grabbing at her hair, wanting to be closer as she gurgled happily.

“Other mum will take very good care of you, Junia.” The Doctor assured her. “But you can just call her mum, if you want. I’m sure she’d be very happy with that.” She said, straightening herself and standing up once more. “I’ll be back soon, both of you. Stay safe, don’t do anything I would do.”

Clara laughed at that, pulling Junia close to her and pressing a reassuring kiss to her forehead. “Your mother is right, Junia.” She said softly. “I would be  _ very  _ happy to be your mum.” 

The girl let out a little squeak, and while Clara couldn’t speak baby she could almost perfectly understand what that happy noise meant.

# # #

“There’s a group approaching from the west, Captain.” Kailan called to Stephanie. “Somewhere between 50 and 75 lifeforms detected. They’re taking no chances.” He said. Stephanie took a deep breath, her hands settling on her hips as the Doctor, Ryan and Graham wandered in. 

The armoury had clearly been well stocked, and the crew had stripped the place complete bare. As they prepared to face the Bracken under Stephanie’s instruction the Doctor appeared in front of her like a constant thorn in her side.

“Hello, sorry to disappoint you all but there’s  _ not  _ going to be any fighting today.” She said cheerfully. “You can put your guns down.”

“Doctor, you’re not going to stop this from happening.”

“Yes, I am.” She said, standing on the tips of her toes to  _ really  _ get close to Stephanie, before turning to face the rest of the crew. “I need to get my friend back. Graham, Ryan and I are going to get ourselves taken as hostages so we can  _ talk  _ to Bracken. We have to be able to sort things out by talking, otherwise they’ll kill our friend. I’ve been in enough wars to know what the point of a hostage situation is.”

A heavy sigh came from behind the Doctor and Stephanie began to remove the various weapons she had attached to herself, depositing them on the floor beside her.

“Kailan, you’re my second in command, if we’re not all back before dawn tomorrow you’ll attack - understood?”

“Yes Captain.” He said quickly, the Doctor looking up at Stephanie with a raised eyebrow.

“Change of heart?”

“If you’re going to negotiate, someone needs to be there to keep you in check.” She replied coldly. “Lead the way, Doctor.”

The Doctor nodded, turning on the heels of her feet and walking outside with Graham, Ryan and Stephanie in tow. She hadn’t expected Stephanie to join them so willingly, but she was glad - a little bit more cooperation would only serve to make this easier. Pressing the button to lower the ramp the Doctor shoved her hands in her pockets, turning to look back at the three Humans behind her with a smile. 

“It’ll be fine. Promise.” She said brightly.

As if the Universe had been waiting for the Doctor’s cue, the ground beneath them began to shake. They’d quickly become accustomed to the world shaking, but this time was different. It wasn’t gentle, and it wasn’t over quickly. Stephanie and Graham fell where they were, Ryan sliding backwards, and the Doctor tumbling headfirst down the ramp and landing in the snow. The shaking seemed to last an eternity and with every passing second something new could be heard breaking - the ship creaked, the trees in the distance snapped, and the ground began to crack. The Doctor could feel the soil beneath the snow liquifying as the quake continued but just a few paces away the damage was even more obvious - the ground beginning to split into two, spitting and hissing as it came to life. The brief moment of respite she had sought after landing in the snow was over, and she was suddenly painfully aware of lava gently bubbling just a few meters away. Worse than that, the lava mixing loudly and angrily with the snow on the surface meant only one thing. A thick, toxic laze forming in front of them, crawling towards them, creeping into their lungs. 

The Doctor took in a deep breath, closing her eyes and letting her body’s respiratory bypass system activate to save her breathing in the gas, before looking back to her companions. Until the shaking stopped, there was nothing she could do.

It had to stop soon. 


	6. V.

When the shaking finally stopped, Yaz opened her eyes and looked around breathlessly, trying to orientate herself and figure out how she could help. Despite the fact that she was a hostage,  _ helping  _ was still the first place her mind went to in the situation. The quake had dislodged a great deal of ground above her and the adjoining room.

She got to her feet, dazed, taking in her own injuries. Her ankle still hurt, putting weight on it was a struggle but  _ possible _ . The shackles around her wrists were still on tightly, but the chains had been hit with rubble and she now had full movement of her arms -  _ that  _ sounded like a pro. Her head felt dizzy and her vision was blurred,  _ that  _ concerned her. She reached up with one hand, felt a damp spot on her head, and pulled her fingers away -  _ blood _ . It wasn’t great, but she’d admittedly seen a lot more before. She was lucky, she knew that much, and she could hear that others were suffering. 

Yaz might’ve been taken hostage by these people but she knew that their actions were driven by the pain that had been inflicted on their kind - the fact that the Humans on the planet had killed their kind.

She thought for just a moment -  _ what would the Doctor do?  _ \- and found herself stumbling out of her cell, the door broken open in the quake, and scanning the room for those that she could help.

These creatures, she had discovered, were incredibly strong. They were just about the same height as Humans but Yaz could see two legs poking out of a mound of rubble that were decidedly smaller than a fully grown person. Registering the fact that this was more than likely a child, Yaz began to carefully remove the dirt and rocks that had fallen.

“Can you hear me?” She called, making sure that she didn’t cause anything else to fall as she worked. “If you can, keep your eyes shut and try to take slow breaths through your nose.” She instructed. She wasn’t fully trained, and didn’t work in a warzone, but as police she’d been given a few sessions of training to make sure she could deal with a situation like this. “You’re okay, I promise, I’ll get you out.” She said. As she worked, one of the other creatures came to her aid. While she couldn’t tell exactly what the creature was, they appeared to have medical equipment. Nothing like the equipment they had back home, these creatures were more primitive than the modern world that Yaz lived in, but she recognised the bandages and fluids that could be used to clean the wounds sustained.

It took a few minutes of careful work, with Yaz cautiously leading the other creature in how to best help, but the child was quickly pulled from the rubble. Yaz could see the distress in her eyes and began to talk to her softly, keeping her calm while the other creature tended to a gash on her forehead and bruising on her arms and chest.

“You’re so brave.” Yaz said with a smile. “When I was your age, I would have been so scared, I’d have wanted nothing more than to have my mum by my side to hold my hand. You did that whole thing by yourself, and I’m so proud of you.” She told the girl, who sniffled and took in a deep breath. “What’s your name?”

“Benas.” The girl replied quietly, and Yaz squeezed her hand.

“Well, it’s lovely to meet you Benas. My name’s Yaz.” She said, giving her a brighter smile. “And I think your parents will be very happy to see you up and about as soon as you’re fixed up, I bet they’re very worried about you. And if they’re not here, I’ll help you find them - okay?” 

Benas nodded, and Yaz gave her hand another squeeze. The young girl winced and Yaz shifted just a little, positioning herself so she could comfortingly run her fingers through the girl’s hair as the other creature cleaned her wound. Once everything was bandaged up, the creature sat back and smiled by way of thanks towards Yaz, who helped the little girl get to her feet.

The room around them had been badly damaged in the quake, but the other injuries seemed to be much more minor and Yaz was able to help the medic by keeping people calm while they were patched together. It felt like almost an eternity had passed, but in reality it had been less than an hour, when Yaz felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned around, recognising the creature that had pulled her around so roughly earlier. Swallowing back her nerves, she took a small step back.

“Yaz.” The creature said, his voice was deep and booming as he spoke, though somehow less intimidating than it had been before.

“How do you know my name?”

“You helped my daughter.” The man said, gesturing down to Benas who offered Yaz a small wave and a smile - now next to her father she seemed much less afraid of the situation they were in. “I am Osma, I’ve been asked to lead and prepare our army to fight against the Human invaders. It seems you are not at all like them.” He suggested, and Yaz - while wanting to protest and fight for the goodness in the others - used her common sense to stay quiet. 

“I will make sure no harm comes to you. You have shown kindness to us that no one expected. You were our prisoner and yet you sought to keep us safe.”

Yaz’s eyes widened a little at his remark, before she managed to keep up her poker face once more. “Thank you.” She said softly.

“I’ll have your chains removed and have someone see to your wound. We are indebted to you, Yaz of Humanity.”

# # #

The shaking stopped, the lava bubbled and the Doctor held her breath, examining the scene around her for a split second before getting to her feet and starting to get her friends to safety.

“Everyone up!” She cried, grabbing Ryan’s hand and pulling him to his feet. She could see that he was disoriented but, with Graham and Stephanie on the floor in the ship, she wasn’t waiting for everyone to be ready. She dragged Ryan behind her, feeling his feet mistepping and his balance swaying, but she fought to keep him upright as she took out her sonic and buzzed the ramp shut behind them. Ryan stumbled as the ramp shut, his legs practically giving out when the Doctor let go of his hand, and he fell back against the wall and breathed heavily.

“Did you see--”

“Yep.” The Doctor said quickly, using one hand to push her hair away from her face. “Stephanie, the oxygen to this ship?”

“We draw it in from outside, it’s filtered for smoke but not toxins, the rovers testing the atmosphere found it breathable.” She explained, and the Doctor’s shoulders sagged. 

“Breathing equipment?” 

“A couple of masks, they filter but not effectively for very long.”

“We need to get this ship away from here, there’s a cloud of hydrochloric acid and volcanic glass coming towards us and if we breathe it in we’ll all be dead in minutes.”

Ryan stopped breathing quite so deeply then, he and Graham looking at the Doctor and Stephanie for answers.

“We’ll take the masks if you’re still set on going after your friend.” Stephanie said, and the Doctor looked at her incredulously - as though the meer suggestion that she wouldn’t was offensive. It likely  _ was _ . “I’ll have my crew fly the ship away, somewhere safe, they can come back and pick us up when we have her back.”

The Doctor nodded, offering a hand to Graham and helping him to his feet as Stephanie began to walk into the heart of the ship. He didn’t have time to open his mouth and ask any questions before the Doctor turned and followed her, quick footsteps closing the gap between her and the Captain.

“You believe me now?”

“Of course I do. I’ll get my crew to send a communique back home, they can organise our return flight while we’re gone and we can escape before anything happens. If that doesn’t work, we’re 15 months from help - and that’s presuming they’ve got another ship ready. Resources are in short supply, we didn’t exactly have an abundance of metal lying around to make these ships. Everything’s repurposed from something else, it’s why we cut corners - why the God damn oxygen isn’t  _ filtered  _ before we breathe it in.” She kicked a wall angrily as she walked, before stopping a few paces later and keying a pin into a pad and opening the door up.

“Life support. Only Kailan and I have the codes to access this - there’s emergency codes for, well, emergencies, but on a crew this small…” She trailed off, letting the Doctor in behind her.

The Doctor looked around at the machinery running the ship. Stephanie was right, it  _ was  _ old. Everything seemed second best, makeshift, and she swallowed back her criticisms. While she still didn’t agree with the approach that Stephanie was taking, she saw the desperation in her eyes and understood  _ why  _ she was doing all these things. 

“You’re an excellent Captain, Stephanie.” She said, remembering a time when she had said similar words to Clara.  _ Goodness had nothing to do with it _ .

The Doctor stood in silence as Stephanie searched various storage units to find the masks. She pulled four out, handing three to the Doctor to hold. The Doctor thanked her with a nod and a slight smile as her lips pursed.

“You’re not so bad yourself,  _ Sonic _ .” She quipped, a teasing smile breaking onto her face as she threw the Doctor’s use of nicknames back at her. The Doctor smiled in return, finding the walls between the pair of them breaking just enough to allow them to share a moment together that wasn’t punctuated with tension.

Another rumble pulled them both back to reality sharply, and they made their way quickly through the ship. Stephanie made her way to speak to her crew as the Doctor returned to Graham and Ryan as quickly as possible, handing them both a mask as she put her own over her face and helped them to adjust theirs properly.

“Doc, are we sure Yaz is still gonna be alive out there?” Graham asked honestly, and the Doctor took a step back, clasping her hands together and giving them both a strained smile.

“I said I’d get you back home.” She replied. “I said you’d change, but I  _ promised  _ I would always get you back home. A volcanic eruption and an inter-species war isn’t going to stop that, I promise. We will find Yaz, and she might be hurting but she’ll be  _ alive _ , and we’ll bring her home. I  _ promise _ .”

Ryan and Graham nodded at the Doctor’s words, trusting her completely as Stephanie returned, her own mask on her face. The Captain glanced at the Doctor who simply nodded, before she leaned over and pressed the button for the ramp to lower. 

The four descended the ramp, immediately hit with an overwhelming heat that the lava had generated, and they took several quick steps back. The lava was oozing gently for the most part, a few small fountains spitting but not much higher than knee level. The real concern now was for the laze that was forming and the Doctor led her companions around the crack in the ground, ensuring that they were as far as possible from the concentrated gas. It wasn’t long after they disembarked that the ship took off, flying not too far above the surface as they searched for a safer spot to wait. As the ship disappeared over the horizon, a looming white cloud growing from the top of a nearby mountain became obvious and the Doctor stopped walking to take a closer look at it. 

“The volcano’s more active than you thought?” Stephanie asked.

“Sooner than I thought.” The Doctor said, concerned. “We need to move quickly, come on.” She said, encouraging her friends to start moving again.

“I’ve never seen a volcano go off.” Ryan said. “Not in person, anyway.”

“Today’s your lucky day I reckon.” Graham told him, patting a hand on his shoulder as the two set off behind the Doctor and started on their walk towards the Bracken army.

# # #

“Master…” Javier’s voice was quiet again, whispering into a different communicator. “I’ve been asked to keep the Time Lord and the child alive. If you want them dead,  _ pay more _ .”

There was an audible growl at the other end of the communicator, the request for additional funds not met happily.

“And, speaking of that, this just got an awful lot more dangerous. I want triple.”

“Triple?!” The voice exclaimed in response.

“The natives want to start a war, and a volcano is about to wipe everything on this planet out. If you want me to go through with this,  _ you’ll pay more _ .”

“Double. Take it or leave it.”

Javier paused for a moment, tapping his fingers rhythmically against the wall behind him.  _ One-two-three-four, one-two-three-four. _

“Deal.” He said. “I’ll be in touch when they’re gone.”

“Javier!” Kailan called, the man quickly pocketing the communicator and attempting to look as nonchalant as could be. “I need you to send a message back home, explain the situation and see what they can do about getting us home or sending us aid.”

“Yes, Sir.” Javier agreed, waiting for the man to vanish from sight before he scrunched up his nose and mocked the man - going about his work silently. 

# # # 

“Hello!” The Doctor beamed, removing her mask and waving cheerfully at the army pointing dozens of spears at her. Of all the people in the Universe, of course it was  _ the Doctor  _ grinning and smiling as she wandered into this situation. “I’m the Doctor, my main rule is no guns but I quite like it when people don’t point spears at me either. Still, if it helps you relax.” And she gave an exaggerated shrug.

“We have a message.” One of the Bracken’s said, watching the Doctor carefully as she sauntered in front of them.

“Can I ask a question first? Pretty please? Cherry on top?” She smiled, rocking on the balls of her feet. “We’d like to come with you, as hostages, a negotiating party, however you’d like to tell your boss. You’ve taken one of my friends and I’d quite like to get her back. I know you’re cross at what’s happened though, so you’re welcome to take us away in chains if that’ll make you all feel a little happier, but I’d like to fix this all. For everyone involved. Is that okay?”

“This is… A trap?” The Bracken asked, and the Doctor shook her head.

“Nope, I just want to talk. I’m the Doctor, this is Stephanie, Ryan, and Graham. Stephanie is  _ very sorry  _ for hurting your friends and we just want to sort everything out so you can all live together in harmony. Preferably before that mountain blows us all to smithereens.” She said, pointing up to the volcano and giving the messenger a grimace. “Whaddya say?”

There was a moment of pause, the Bracken considering her request, before he waved several soldiers forwards. They went in pairs, one with chains and one holding a spear at the four to make sure no one tried anything as they were shackled. Graham and Ryan, used to placing their trust in the Doctor, allowed their wrists to be cuffed with little complaining but Stephanie was very clearly unhappy.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Doctor.” She said in annoyance.

“Trust me, Captain, this isn’t the first time I’ve been taken away in cuffs by aliens, not knowing where I’m going.”

“Well, let’s just hope it won’t be the last time either.”


	7. VI.

As the SS Raven flew with Kailan at the helm and Rizwaan navigating, Javier and Layla were left to gather themselves. Despite having Kailan deputising for Stephanie there was a tension that lingered in the air - the knowledge that they were  _ alone _ . Their mission was supposed to be simple, establishing a mining colony wasn’t the easiest thing to do in the Galaxy but no one had expected a war, or a volcano, and Layla was still somewhat shaken. Javier could see the worry in her face and offered her a tight smile.

“Go see your sister.” He encouraged, pushing his hair back from his face. “She’ll be glad to have you by her side, I’m sure. Kailan has asked me to make contact with home, I’ll join you both to make sure she’s healing well once I’m done.” 

“Thank you.” Layla said quietly, making a quick getaway from the recreational room. Javier sat with his breath held for a moment, closing his eyes and mentally running over the steps in his plan. Kill the Doctor, the child, and her companions, and he would be paid handsomely - rich beyond what he had ever imagined. While he didn’t mind getting his hands dirty he intended on killing the Doctor as easily as possible. She was on the surface, and if she was still there whenever the volcano exploded then she would be  _ very  _ easy to kill. Killing the child would be a little more complicated, and would likely go detected by the crew (or at the very least, the woman the Doctor seemed so enamoured with -  _ Clara _ ). If he had to kill them all, he would arrange for that.

Javier got to his feet, his hands in his pockets as he walked out of the room. He was aware that Clara had been sitting a short distance away, occupied with the child, and he made a point to listen for footsteps behind him as he walked. Of course, to those that couldn’t read his mind he was simply doing as Kailan had instructed, but upon reaching the communications array he made no attempt to send a message. Javier was no mechanic, but he knew enough to break the system in question.

Certain that he was alone, Javier kneeled down before the machine and began to take it apart - quietly removing screws with a manual screwdriver as he worked in silence - his ears pricked as he listened for the slightest hint of anything other than the whirring of the ship. If this was going to work, he  _ couldn’t  _ get caught.

As he removed the panel from the machine he looked up, scanning his surroundings before gently placing the metal on the floor. If the ship so much as tilted too far in one direction the panel would scrape against the metal grates and his cover would be blown. After a moment of silence, Javier took a pair of wire cutters and held them in his left hand, leaning in close and carefully scanning the circuitry to try and figure out what would be the easiest way to keep the machine from operating while arousing the least suspicion. 

He racked his mind, but knowing that Kailan would likely take a look at the machine he knew it was impossible to outsmart him. Instead of doing the least noticeable damage possible, Javier elected to make the damage he did as unfixable as possible. He took the wire cutters and began to cut every wire he could see, snipping them in multiple places and removing lengths of wire so it would be impossible to solder them back together. With each wire that was cut he noticed light after light beginning to blink red and hurried his work. He pulled a glove onto his hand and reached into the machine, pulling as many wires as he could in one swift movement, before quickly starting to replace the panel. 

By the time Javier had finished, the whole process had taken a little over 10 minutes, and he managed to leave without being seen. Stephanie, the Doctor and her friends wouldn’t be able to contact the ship from the surface, and the ship couldn’t contact home - they were isolated, and Javier could begin to hatch a plan to rid himself of the child and, if necessary, the rest of the crew.

# # #

“This is a cosy little place you’ve got here.” The Doctor said, the Bracken army leading the four of them through the tunnels of their home. “You know, I used to have a pal that was a Silurian - they had the exact same kind of tunnels you did back on Earth. Such a clever system, I have to say. Not the  _ best  _ when there’s earthquakes, mind.” She said, looking at a pile of rubble as they passed by. “I’m sure when you and the Human’s here are getting along they’ll be happy to show you how to reinforce the walls and ceilings a bit better, save you from having the rebuild too often.”

“Doctor--” Stephanie hissed, a few paces behind her. “I’m not sure our  _ hosts  _ are best pleased with how much you talk.”

The Doctor looked either side of her, the Bracken both looking dead ahead with deep frowns on their faces, their ears pressed back against the sides of their heads.

“Ah.” She said. “That would explain the lack of response I’ve been getting. I thought they were just really good listeners.”

“Tell you what, Doc, if you can keep your mouth shut for five minutes I’ll give you one of my world famous pocket sandwiches.”

Ryan laughed at Graham’s tease, Stephanie mouthing  _ pocket sandwiches  _ to herself in confusion, and the Doctor shook her head.

“That’s a bad deal, Graham. You can’t keep your half of the bargain anyway, that’s not even your jacket.”

“Worth a shot.” He shrugged, feeling his chains pulled as they rounded a corner and the tunnel opened up into a large room. 

The room itself was brightly lit, not as dark as the tunnels they had walked through, and the room had clearly suffered a lot more damage during the earthquakes than the tunnels. A number of Bracken stood towards the back of the room, the leader immediately identifiable. He was standing several paces further forwards and his armour was much more intricate than the rest. As the soldiers that brought the four down into the room began to disperse and it became easier to see the through the lessening crowd, the Doctor gasped pleasantly.

“Yaz!” She grinned from ear to ear, spotting her standing in the middle of the Bracken. While the Doctor couldn’t see her completely she didn’t look badly harmed - and the one injury she  _ could  _ see looked like it had been patched up. “Oh,  _ brilliant _ , I knew we’d find you!” She said cheerfully, and the soldier holding her chained wrists tugged quickly to get her to stop talking. 

Everything the army did was like clockwork, like a ritual, all bowing before the leader in perfect time. The Doctor and Stephanie instinctively followed suit, bowing with them, and Ryan and Graham followed their lead. When they heard movement around them the four stood back up and watched the Bracken before them step closer.

“I am Osma.” He announced, his eyes glancing over the three Human’s and the Doctor. “I am the General of the United Bracken army. I have spent years seeking to find a peace with my own kind and with the  _ invasion  _ of your species that has been achieved.”

“We would like to seek peace with you, Osma.” The Doctor said. “I’m the Doctor, and 

my friends and I don’t want a war, there was a horrible accident and while it’s true that they have wronged you, we hope that you can be the bigger people and refuse to escalate the situation further. Will you let us speak?”

Osma nodded, and the Doctor looked to Stephanie, gesturing her head towards Osma for her to make her own case.

“My name is Stephanie Wynn. I am the Captain of the SS Raven, the ship that landed on this planet. My crew were attacked by one of your creatures and I retaliated. I killed a number of your kind.”

Despite the Bracken’s knowledge of the situation there were gasps in the room, and Stephanie bit her tongue with her mouth closed to prevent her reacting to the sound and making things worse. The Doctor gave her a smile from the side, encouraging her to go on.

“I did not mean to start a war, and none of my crew took part in my decision. I just wanted to protect the people I have come to love. My actions were out of  _ fear _ , not out of hatred, and I apologise deeply for what happened. However I can rectify this, I’ll be happy to do so, but don’t punish anyone else for my failures.”

There was a moment of silence, consideration evident on Osma’s face, when the ground around them began to shake violently. The earthquake was over in barely a moment and while it hadn’t been as large as the previous quake, dust fell from the ceiling and cracks began to form along the walls. Parents pulled their children closer and the Doctor could see Yaz looking concerned from across the room. 

“Please, Osma.” The Doctor said. “There’s a volcano outside that’s going to erupt soon. It’s already started on the surface, channels of lava are starting to burst open and before long entire mountains are going to be blown into the sky. This peace needs to be reached quickly if we’re to have a chance of surviving this. Everyone - Human and Bracken - needs to get as far away from here as possible.” She pleaded.

“Then we need a sacrifice.” Osma said, taking several steps forward until he was barely a meter away from Stephanie. The Captain stood taller than the General, but she certainly didn’t feel it at that moment. “If you are truly sorry, you’ll come with me to be sacrificed. That will save our people and save a war.”

“Osma--” The Doctor began, but she was cut off by Stephanie.

“Of course.” She said, her tone unwavering as she fought back any surging emotions successfully. “If that’s what you need to prove that we aren’t here to fight, I’ll sacrifice myself for you.”

“No, hang on, surely there’s something else that can be done!” Graham interjected. “She shouldn’t have to die, that’s not fair.”

“She killed several of our species, I think it’s fair.” Osma said, looking at Graham. “Unless, of course,  _ you  _ are offering yourself up.”

The Doctor stepped forwards so she could see around Stephanie, shaking her head. Something in Graham’s eyes looked as if he were considering Osma’s words and she marked that in her mind as a conversation to have with him later.

“No, he’s not.” She said quickly. “This can’t be the only way, Osma. A sacrifice won’t stop the volcano from erupting. Surely Stephanie can make amends in other ways?”

“Captain Wynn has offered herself as a sacrifice, unless you are offering yourself in her place I expect you to remain silent.”

The Doctor fidgeted, swallowing and stepping back in line. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Stephanie looking at her expectantly, but there was nothing else she could do. She could sense the anger the Captain felt towards her - the betrayal that she had let her take the risk of her own life and that the Doctor had been unable to save her, and she began to do the one thing she was good at.

Think.

# # #

“Kailan?” Clara poked her head into the cockpit of the ship, Junia held close to her chest protectively as she spoke. “Is there anywhere we can talk together? Alone, if you don’t mind?”

“Of course.” He said, turning to Rizwaan. “Keep us in the air and away from that mountain, but not too far. We need to pick up Stephanie as soon as she’s out.”

Rizwaan nodded and Kailan stood from the pilots seat, his footsteps loud on the floor as he wandered to Clara’s side. He placed one hand on her back, leading her through the ship to find an isolated room, pulling her inside and locking the doors behind them. 

“You already know?” Clara asked quietly.

“Something’s wrong.” He said, leaning back against the wall and speaking in hushed tones. “The communication channels have been knocked out; someone’s been tampering with the equipment. There aren’t alarms for that sort of thing but a couple of alerts popped up while I was flying.”

“It’s Javier.” She confirmed. “He didn’t see me, I saw him sneaking around earlier and Layla was with Celeste - if Rizwaan’s been with you the entire time there’s no other explanation for it.”

“Why would he be trying to cut off our communications?” Kailan asked Clara, and she shrugged. 

“I don’t know. But I don’t like it. We’re meant to be finding a way out of here, aren’t we? That volcano is gonna blow any second and he’s making sure we can’t contact anyone. If I weren’t so old I might’ve missed it, but he’s trying to kill us.”

“I don’t understand why he’d  _ do  _ that.” Kailan said, folding his arms across his chest and closing his eyes. “We’ve been on this ship for 15 months together, and preparing for the mission years before that. We’re like family to each other, why would he try to kill us? And why would he wait so long if he did? He doesn’t even know how to fly this thing, if he killed us all he wouldn’t be able to get off the planet and the eruption would kill him.”

“Unless he isn’t trying to kill you…” Clara voiced, taking in a deep breath. “The Doctor’s made plenty of enemies in her life, there’s hundreds of creatures that would jump at the chance to kill her.”

“He’s Human, too many physical exams in the run up to this for him  _ not  _ to be. They’d have caught onto it already if he wasn’t.”

Clara’s shoulders fell, but finding an explanation wasn’t the most important thing to focus on for now. 

“We need to find a way to stop him, we can try and get it out of him later but for now we need to make sure he doesn’t tamper with anything else. Do you have cuffs? Something to knock him out with?”

“Somewhere, we’ll need to get to them before he does.” Kailan said. “I can look for them, can you let Layla and Rizwaan know what’s going on? I don’t want him to hurt either of them before we have a chance to stop him.”

Clara nodded quickly, feeling Junia begin to stir in her arms. She wasn’t happy about the situation and Clara could see her getting upset. She began to rub little circles on the girl’s back, trying to keep her calm and remain undetected if Javier was outside. Whatever happened, she  _ couldn’t  _ let any harm come to Junia.

Kailan opened the door to the room they were in, poking his head out and looking both ways before stepping out and beckoning Clara to follow him. She did, and he gestured for her to stay still for a moment as he began to walk away. She waited until his footsteps faded into the distance to start walking herself, heading back to the cockpit to talk to Rizwaan.

# # # 

The ship was small and that had never been a problem, but facing someone with such intimate knowledge of the layout of the ship who was several steps ahead of them made Kailan nervous. Every corner he rounded was another chance to come face to face with Javier. Without knowing exactly what he was planning he was afraid that Javier would keep the upper hand. He had no way to contact Stephanie with the communication channels down and hoped that she would be safe, wherever she was. She would have the answers - or maybe the Doctor would - but for now he had to trust his own instincts and he had to trust Clara.

He managed to get to one of the storage rooms undetected, starting to look for something to restrain Javier with. It wasn’t a silent task, and Kailan found himself wincing at every sound he made. Maybe being quiet would have attracted more attention, maybe making so much noise would seem  _ normal  _ and Javier would be thrown off the scent. 

Kailan was on his third storage container when he heard a cough behind him, and he turned around quickly and sheepishly to find himself face to face with Javier. The younger man eyed him with a sadistic smile, twirling handcuffs around his finger with one hand and pointing a gun at the engineer with another.

“Looking for these?” He asked calmly, smiling as he glanced at the cuffs. “You’ll be glad to know I found them first. You’d think with 15 months on a ship you’d know where you put things. It pays to learn, Kailan.”

“What are you doing, Javier?” Kailan said, swallowing and raising his hands. “Put the gun down,  _ talk to me _ , what’s going on?”

“What’s going on?” He asked. “What’s  _ going on  _ is that you’re going to be quiet, I’m going to put these cuffs on you and you’re going to behave. Do exactly as I tell you.”

“That’s not what I mean, Javier. You’ve always been a good man, why the change of heart?”

“Money. More than any of us could  _ ever  _ imagine. I could send it home to my parents, do you know how well taken care of they could be for just a  _ fraction  _ of what I’m going to earn from this?”

“I know you’re desperate, Javier, we all are, but--”

“Stop talking, Kailan. You’re only wasting your breath, and I wouldn’t guarantee you have many more of those to come.”

“What do you mean?” He asked, ashamed of the way that the words stuttered as they came out of his mouth.

“This.” Javier replied. And without missing a beat, he shot him.


	8. VII.

Clara slid herself into the co-pilot seat, Riwaan having moved into the pilot seat as soon as Kailan had left to speak with her. He noticed that he hadn’t returned, and looked towards her expectantly.

“There’s a slight change of plan.” Clara said, bouncing Junia softly on her knee to keep the little girl calm as she spoke. “Javier.”

“What about him?”

“He’s… He’s gone  _ rogue _ , he’s taken out the communication channels and we think he’s planning on doing something to harm the crew, maybe even kill us. Kailan’s looking for something to restrain him with, I just need you and Layla to be aware so he can’t try to do anything to either of you. At least now you’ll have an idea that _ something  _ is happening.”

“Javier wouldn’t do that.” Rizwaan replied, though he wasn’t thoroughly convinced by his own words. Even though he defended his friend, he started to mentally think of how he’d changed over the last couple of days. He hadn’t seemed like himself and he’d put it down to the increased workload while they were in orbit, preparing for landing, but he couldn’t help thinking it might’ve been something more. “Even if he  _ did _ , why would he do it?”

“We don’t know, we just know he’s up to something.” Clara told him. “Please, Rizwaan, you have to trust me. We don’t know what he’s got planned but we can’t let him have the upper hand - we just have to let him think he does.”

Rizwaan hesitated, looking out the window at the world before them, leaning the ship to the right slightly as he turned to steer them away from the smoking mountain. “Fine.” He said eventually, sighing and letting his shoulders relax. “Fine,  _ I trust you _ , what do you need me to do?”

“Just keep flying.” Clara said. “I have to find Layla and let her know. If Javier comes, don’t let him do anything and  _ don’t  _ let him get the controls.”

“You said he’s taken out the communication channels, what about Stephanie?”

“The Doctor’s with her, she’ll be fine.” Clara said. “Keep an eye out for them on the surface, if you see them, pick them up.”

Rizwaan nodded, casting his eyes down to scan the ground for anything that  _ wasn’t  _ snow. As he did the ground below them started to shake obviously, another large quake rattling the surface. Behind them the mountain began to puff smoke at an increased rate, and beneath them the ground cracked and split - huge amounts of pressure being released in the form of boiling hot geysers.

“Turn!” Clara yelled, holding Junia close to her chest protectively with one hand and grabbing the seat she was on tightly with the other. Rizwaan, strapped into his seat, focused all his efforts on lurching the ship to the left to avoid flying straight through the geyser. While they avoided any impact they could hear the sound of equipment sliding behind them - anything that hadn’t been fastened down moving and falling from the sudden motion.

Clara looked up again as the ship began to settle, blowing her hair out of her face and breathing heavily as she looked outside.

“We don’t have long.” She said, looking to Rizwaan. As the ship stopped banking he reached beneath the control panel, pulling out a small earpiece for Clara.

“Short range communicator. Get to Layla, contact me on that if you run into any trouble.” He said. Clara took the communicator and nodded, thanking him as she left the cockpit.

# # #

“Javier?!” Layla called, stumbling to her feet as the ship began to level off. He said he’d find her once he’d sent a message back home, and surely it wouldn’t take that long? Celeste had barely been able to stay in her bed and rest as the ship had taken such a dramatic turn, and Layla had fallen off her seat completely. She didn’t know where he friend was and needed to make sure that he was  _ safe _ , that he hadn’t been hurt any worse than the slight knock to the head she’d taken. 

“Javier, can you hear me?” She shouted, looking around the empty corridors before picking a direction and running. Her feet hit the ground rhythmically, the noise echoing around her. She heard a low grunting and her head turned to face the direction it had come from, before she started running again in that direction.

“Javier, it’s Layla, are you alright?” She came to a halt when she saw him, crouched and walking slowly as he dragged an unconscious body behind him. Her eyes widened as she took in the scene.

“Is Kailan alright?” She asked quickly, assuming he’d fallen as the ship had turned. But as Javier let go of him and turned around she began to see  _ more _ . There was a bullet wound in his leg - the hole in his trousers obvious - and she could see blood staining the fabric, pooling on the floor beneath his body and a path left in his wake. Javier hadn’t said anything and Layla’s eyes flitted up to him, watching as he calmly and methodically went about his own business. He was silent, and that  _ terrified  _ Layla.

“Javier… What’s going on?” She whispered, beginning to take a slow step back. Javier reached into his pocket and pulled out a cloth, wiping his hands (though there seemed to be nothing there, and the action was more for theatrics than any useful purpose).

“Oh, Layla. Little Layla.” He purred, his voice menacing and low as he walked towards her in a few quick, long strides. “You’ve always been too trusting.” He told her, grabbing her wrists tightly before she had the chance to move away from him. Her body jerked and she pulled against his grip desperately, but to no avail.

“What are you doing?” Her voice sounded broken as he forced her body back, pinning her against a wall with his elbow to free up his hands and allow him to bind her wrists together. “Where are the others?”

“Don’t worry yourself over that. Best not worry about anything, anymore.” He said, pulling the knot tightly and revelling in the obvious sound of discomfort she made. “Now, be a good girl and keep quiet.” He threatened. 

Javier looked away, deliberately giving her the opportunity to run. When she did he simply stuck his leg out, tripping her and listening to the thud as she landed face first on the ground. He heard a soft groan and while he was distracted he heard her attempt to cry out.

“Celeste! Rizwa--” He placed a foot on her back, squeezing the air out of her lungs and leaving a little weight on her as a warning.

“I did tell you to stay quiet.” He said, sighing and crouching down beside her with a sadistic smirk on his face. “Will you stay quiet if I take my foot off your spine?” 

Layla shook her head, defiant, and Javier offered her a loose shrug.

“I  _ tried  _ to be nice.” He said, lifting his foot from her back, before swiftly kicking her head and knocking her unconscious.

# # #

The Doctor’s shackles were removed first and she made a beeline for Yaz, her eyes looking over the young woman to check for any more injuries. She rested a hand on her shoulder gently and she saw a wave of relief flow through her.

“You alright?” The Doctor asked, and Yaz nodded.

“Took a knock from the earthquake.” She said, pointing to the bandaged wound on her head. “Nothing too serious. I helped look after a few of these people, they said they wouldn’t harm me as thanks.”

“Good.” The Doctor said, squeezing Yaz’s shoulder and giving her a smile. “We don’t want you getting hurt.” She said, turning away from Yaz as Ryan and Graham approached. Ryan and Yaz embraced briefly and the Doctor made her way towards Osma.

“We need a plan to evacuate, how far do these tunnels go?” She asked him quickly, making a mental note that Stephanie’s cuffs hadn’t been removed as she stood beside her.

“Everywhere.” Osma said. “We’ve been living underground for generations, waging wars with other tribes and avoiding the cold when winter comes.”

“You need to get your people as far--” She paused, licking the tip of her finger and holding her hand at arms distance for a moment, before pointing over her shoulder “--that way as possible. The volcano is going to cause untold damage and the further you can get from it, the better.” 

“I’ll get my best people on it. Where will you go, Doctor?”

“Back to my ship.” She said. “Save the Human’s, get everyone home before teatime, all in a day's work.”

“You’ll be able to take my sacrifice and I to the volcano, then?”

“About that…” The Doctor began, leaning back against a wall with her arms crossed over her chest. “I’m not a  _ huge  _ fan of sacrificing people. Is there something else we can sacrifice? Maybe a ritual that  _ doesn’t  _ involve a sacrifice at all, that would be fab.” She said. While she didn’t want to disrespect the Bracken or their religion, she needed to at least try to keep Stephanie safe. “She’s apologised for what happened, and Human’s aren’t exactly the  _ best  _ at getting things right, so that’s a big step for them!”

“I can be a sacrifice, Doctor.” Stephanie said, and the Doctor sighed.

“I know, and that’s  _ very  _ noble of you, but that’s not the point. Peace shouldn’t mean anyone dying, not even one more person. There’s already been enough pain.”

As the Doctor spoke the ground began to shake again, the ceilings crumbling and the Bracken surrounding them panicking. The quake was stronger than the one before, and though it didn’t cause any major collapse the ground beneath their feet began to open up. The shaking stopped, the air around them quickly filling with the smell of rotten eggs.  _ Sulphur _ .

“We don’t have much time.” The Doctor said, and Osma nodded. He crossed the crack in the ground to speak with the Bracken, and Graham, Yaz and Ryan came back to join the Doctor and Stephanie. Yaz had a slight limp still and the Doctor noted it, making sure there was no reason for Yaz to run and make it worse (if she had any control over the situation, that was). Yaz had a hand covering her nose at the overwhelming smell and the Doctor held out her mask to the woman, giving her a smile.

“Right fam,  _ plan _ . Once Osma’s got these people evacuating we’ll head back to the surface, make contact with the ship, they’ll come pick us up and we’ll take Osma to the volcano. Stephanie I won’t let him sacrifice you, I promise, but we have to respect their faith. If you can show as Humans that you understand and respect what they’re doing, when you come back again to start mining they’ll remember that and maybe they won’t immediately attack you.” She said hopefully, offering her friends a smile. The four looked between themselves, allowing Stephanie to nod first before her fam followed suit. The Doctor’s smile widened in response to their agreement with her plan, and she felt a large hand press down on her shoulder and squeeze.

“We’re ready, Doctor.” Osma said. “Lead the way.”

The Doctor nodded, setting off on their return to the surface. Yaz walked with support from Graham and Ryan on either side of her, giving her something to grab onto when her ankle hurt too much, and Stephanie walked beside Osma. He had no intentions of letting her out of his sight until the sacrifice was complete.

# # #

The journey back to the surface was slow, Yaz’s ankle was more badly damaged than the Doctor had first assumed and earthquakes shook the world around them time and time again. While the tunnels hadn’t completely collapsed they were weakening, small rockfalls making their journey harder and making the Doctor even more conscious that they needed to get out quickly. The volcano would erupt before long and if nothing else, they  _ had  _ to be on a ship to have even a chance of surviving. 

The first sign that they were nearing the surface was the freezing cold - the wind blowing down through the tunnel with a whistle that was tuneful at first, but annoying after the next few minutes. They walked in silence as the ground beneath their feet became damp from snowmelt, and when they could finally see light they all quickened their pace. The Doctor ran the last little distance and took in the scene before her. The mountain before them was smoking consistently now, and further cracks had opened up with magma bubbling its way to the surface, lava seeping slowly across the landscape. In the distance, geysers were spurting high into the sky and the Doctor took in a deep breath. Everything seemed to be going much faster than she could figure things out , but she  _ couldn’t  _ let time get the better of her now.

“Stephanie, call Kailan and get him to bring the ship down.” The Doctor said. The ship was circling in the distance, but too far for anyone to be able to see the six of them. 

“Hands.” She said, looking at the world around her with concern etched onto her face. The Doctor turned at that, moving over to her and wiggling her fingers.

“Which pocket?” 

“The left.” Stephanie told her and the Doctor reached in quickly, taken aback when the pockets weren’t bigger on the inside, before pulling the communicator out and pressing a button to talk. 

“Kailan, it’s the Doctor, bring the ship around and pick us up.” She said, waiting a few moments before frowning. “Kailan?”

“It’s not working.” Stephanie said. “There should be a buzz when you press that button down, lets you know it’s connected.” She explained, and the Doctor turned the communicator over in her hands as she pressed the button several times. She could hear the mechanism clicking, but no buzz. She took out her sonic, giving the thing a quick burst of energy, but still nothing.

“The channels are down.” Stephanie whispered as she realised why the device wasn’t working, looking up to the ship in the sky. “We’ve got no way to get in touch with them.”

“Okay…” The Doctor breathed, looking back to Osma and her fam. She couldn’t let them down, she  _ wouldn’t  _ let them down. Whatever it took, she’d get them home safely. She always would.

“Good news.” The Doctor began, clasping her hands together. “ _ I have a plan _ . Bad news, we can’t contact the ship and that volcano is going to go off any minute. But I’ll figure it out,  _ promise _ .”

“I thought you said you had a plan?” Yaz asked.

“I did, didn’t I? I lie. Rule number one, if you’re keeping up Osma.” She said with a smile. “Rule number two -  _ don’t panic _ . I promise I can fix this.”

# # #

Clara had found Celeste and spoken to her about the threat that Javier posed, but she thought it unlikely that Javier would touch her. She was already bedridden after her attack, blind in one eye, hardly the sort of person he’d concern himself with. She wandered through the ship with Junia close to her chest, keeping her footsteps impossibly light as she attempted to move around the ship undetected. Rizwaan was still flying, talking to her quietly in her ear, which reassured her that between them they could fix things. She was concerned that she hadn’t found Kailan again, but assumed he would be taking similar precautions to her.

As she rounded a corner she caught a glimpse of two feet being pulled into a room and took a quick step back, concealing herself from view and listening closely for any movement. There was nothing. Javier must’ve sensed her, heard her,  _ seen her  _ somehow. She poked her head around the corner again and saw that the coast was clear. She had no obvious plan of how to face Javier alone, and without any weapons, but leaving him any longer wasn’t an option. She held Junia close to her chest and began to tiptoe closer, her breathing shallow and quick.

As she approached the empty loading bay she could hear Javier humming to himself, quiet moans and grunts as he moved things around. The things didn’t sound like crates, they sounded awfully soft, like  _ people _ , and Clara took in a deep breath before moving to stand in the doorway.

Javier had his back to her in the moment and she had a second to watch him pull Layla’s body upright. The young woman was conscious again, her wrists now cuffed with metal chains and the rope that had originally been used to restrain her now used to gag her. She tried to say something in vain, hopelessly muffled against the fabric in her mouth, and Javier chuckled. His hand moved to her cheek and gently brushed at the skin.

“Take it easy. I might not kill you.” He muttered to her, before moving away from her and focusing on Kailan. He was conscious, just barely, and his skin was dull and clammy. He hadn’t stopped bleeding since he’d been shot and needed urgent medical attention. While Javier maneuvered Kailan, Layla made eye contact with Clara - trying to silently urge her to leave. Instead she stood her ground.

“What are you doing?” Clara asked clearly, Javier jumping at her voice and pausing in his tracks, before turning around to look at her with his eyebrows raised questioningly. 

“Oh, hello.” He smirked. “I could ask you the same thing, pretty girl.”

“Very clever, you think I haven’t been patronized in the last five hundred years?” Clara quipped, offering a sarcastic smile in return. “Do you want to tell me what you’re doing before I stop you? Get in a proper bad guy monologue?”

“You think I’m a bad guy?” Javier asked, gasping with mock offense and raising one hand to his chest - the other reaching for the gun at his side. “I’m just trying to make ends meet, I was offered a job and I took it. Well, I was offered two - very different jobs, but this one paid better.” He smiled. “If you have any sense, you might want to hand the child over to me.”

“You’re  _ not  _ taking Junia.” Clara said, taking a step back and holding Junia closer to her. “I don’t care what job, or how much you’ve been offered, you aren’t laying a single finger on her.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.” Javier told her, cocking the gun and placing his finger on the trigger with a smile. “I don’t think I need to lay a finger on her to kill her, though.”

As if Junia could sense the danger she was in, she began to cry. Clara made no move to comfort her - she could comfort the child once she was  _ safe _ , for now she just needed to keep her alive.

“You wouldn’t  _ dare _ .” Clara said, taking a step forward. If she was going to disarm him, she had to get closer. “Whatever this job is, however much money you’ve been offered, you  _ have  _ to have some kind of conscience Javier. She’s a baby, she’s done nothing to hurt you, you can’t kill her.”

“It’s nothing personal.” Javier told her, and as Clara took another step forward he pulled the trigger and shot.

Clara didn’t quite know how she’d managed to react so quickly, but she angled her body just enough to protect Junia, the bullet from the gun lodging deep in her shoulder instead. Clara let out a cry of pain, gritting her teeth together and taking slow breaths to try and keep herself calm.

“I’ve got plenty more bullets where that came from.” Javier threatened, his finger hovering over the trigger once more. “So, hand her over.”

“Never--” Clara gasped, and Javier sighed as he shot her again. He grazed her this time, and while it still hurt Clara took relief in the fact that he was a bad shot.

“One last chance, Clara.” He said, aiming the gun directly at her face. “You don’t have to die, too.”

Clara closed her eyes, taking one last breath as she held Junia closer still, her heart racing as she forced herself to stay strong.

“No.”

And with her eyes closed she didn’t see it coming, but she heard the shot ringing out around her.


	9. VIII.

Clara opened her eyes and looked around her. That was a pleasant feeling. The ringing of the shot died down and she heard Javier fall in front of her, the gun dropping to the floor. She tried to piece things together in her mind when Celeste pushed past her and her own eyes widened. Celeste… 

“You shot him--” Clara said, relief coursing through her veins.

“He’s still alive.” She said, cursing silently. “Help me tie him up before he does anything else.” She said, and Clara quickly obeyed. She crouched down beside Celeste and javier, placing Junia on the ground and leaning her against her knee as she held the man’s wrists behind him. Celeste made quick work of restraining him, tying his wrists tighter than she perhaps should have but Clara made no move to stop her from doing so. Celeste moved to tie Javier’s legs together and Clara left her to work on that alone, scooping up Junia as she crossed the room. She took the cuffs off Layla’s wrists and let her remove the gag in her mouth alone as she did the same for Kailan, her free hand moving to his neck and taking his pulse. Faint, but there.

“Javier was our medic.” Celeste explained. “There’s still plenty of supplies, though. We can try to stem the bleeding?” She suggested, and Clara was quick to nod in agreement.

“Take these.” Clara said, reaching for the two pairs of handcuffs now lying on the ground and tossing them to Celeste. “One on each wrist, chain him to pipes, the wall, anything you can find. We need to make sure he can’t get away.”

Celeste nodded, catching the cuffs and working as Clara instructed. Layla looked to Kailan and frowned.

“We need to get him to the medbay.” She said, and Clara nodded. Kailan was, by far, the biggest of the four of them. With Junia in tow (and a bullet lodged in her shoulder) Clara was no help with carrying him, but as soon as Celeste had chained up Javier the sisters worked together to lift Kailan as carefully as possible. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do.

The three of them wandered through the ship slowly, Kailan dipping in and out of consciousness as he was carried, and as soon as they reached the medbay Celeste and Layla placed Kailan on the unmade bed.

“I’m going to try and contact the Doctor.” Clara told them. “Stephanie should be with her, we can make sure that they know what they’re coming back to.”

“But… Communication channels…” Kailan groaned from the bed, trying to sit upright and look at Clara as she spoke. Celeste and Layla forced him to lie back down to conserve his energy and Clara just offered him a smile.

“I’m a bit more old fashioned.” She beamed, turning and running back to the recreation room. She made a small bed out of blankets and cushions for Junia to lie on safely, placing the girl down and pressing a kiss to her forehead as she checked her over quickly for any injuries. There was blood on the top of her head, but it was from the shot to Clara’s shoulder rather than anything that had happened to her, and once Clara was confident the little girl had calmed down enough she grabbed the walkie-talkie the Doctor had left behind, starting to talk.

“Doctor?” She asked. “Doctor, can you hear me? There’s been a bit of a situation.” 

_ That  _ was putting it lightly. Behind her she could hear Junia babbling away to herself and Clara smiled, moving to sit beside her. While the Doctor took a moment to answer she could let herself have a moment to rest. She found that, as the adrenaline wore off, the pain of the bullet in her shoulder began to flare up even as she tried to ignore it.

“Doctor, please answer…” Clara whispered into the device, and after a moment she heard static turn into pure joy.

“Oh,  _ Clara Oswald _ , you are a genius.” Came a relieved voice. “Stephanie’s communicator wasn’t working, we thought we’d lost you.”

“No, we’re here, are you out? We’ll come back for you, there’s been a small incident but everything’s fine. Mostly.  _ Will be  _ anyway.” Junia started to babble again as Clara spoke and she held the walkie-talkie closer to her, little hands reaching for it as Clara held down the button, letting the Doctor hear Junia safe and well.

“Hello, petal.” The Doctor said happily, and Junia let out a squeal of delight as she heard her mother’s voice, babbling away once more as Clara continued to speak.

“Where are you?”

“Get Kailan to turn the ship around, full 180, we’re near the exit to a tunnel, a forest behind us. If you fly low to the ground you’ll see us waving.” Stephanie instructed, and Clara nodded.

“On it, shout if you need me.” She said, bringing a finger to the earpiece Rizwaan had given her, pressing down to speak to him.

“Turn the ship around, now, they’re out near some trees - fly low and they’ll be waving.”

“Yes Captain.” Rizwaan called back, and Clara could hear the smile in his voice as he pulled the ship around. The turn was quick but he took care not to bank too much this time, flying low and slow to keep an eye out for the six. Clara glanced at Junia, smiling at her for a brief moment before picking her up from the nest she’d made, grabbing the carried the Doctor had been wearing when they arrived, and making her way back to the ramp. As soon as they landed she could help them on and reunite Junia with her mother - and figure out what to do with Javier.

Clara heard the Doctor’s voice over the walkie-talkie in her pocket as Rizwaan spoke to her through the earpiece.

“I see ‘em boss, pulling her in now.”

“Meet us in the recreational room as soon as she’s landed, I think the medbay’s gonna be crowded.” Clara told him, feeling the ship landing gently on the surface and hitting the button for the doors to open and the ramp to descend.

Clara felt a cold blast of air hit her first, the Doctor bounding up the ramp and wrapping her arms around both Clara and Junia immediately. She pressed a kiss to Clara’s cheek, then Junia’s forehead, then frowned. She tasted blood, why did she taste blood? Clara saw the Doctor’s expression changing and gave her a gentle smile.

“Things got a little complicated.” She explained, taking a step back and tilting her head towards her shoulder. “Nothing that can’t be fixed, I’ll tell you everything in a minute.” She said, Yaz, Ryan and Graham following the Doctor and seeing the wounds on her shoulder.

“What’s happened?” Graham asked. “You alright?” 

“It’s fine, promise. Go sit down and I can explain everything.”

“Where’s my crew?” Stephanie asked, closing the door behind her as she and Osma came aboard the ship. Osma looked around at the infrastructure, blown away by the sheer scale of the technological advancements of this species.

“Please, just sit down.” Clara said, the Doctor placing an arm around the younger woman. She could sense that whatever had happened, Clara had done her best to keep people safe, but she was only Human and she needed to sit down. Especially after having been shot -  _ at least twice _ , the Doctor noted the two holes in her shirt with blood wetting the fabric. Silently she led everyone through the ship, helping Clara to walk and sitting her down as soon as she could. Celeste, Layla and Kailan were still in the medbay and Javier was nowhere to be seen - she could only hope he was still locked up as she began to tell everyone what had happened.

“Javier turned on us.” She said, looking to Stephanie to explain as much as possible. “He sabotaged the communications channel, shot Kailan, gagged and bound Layla - he wanted to kill Junia but I wouldn’t let him. He shot me twice, he would’ve killed me if Celeste hadn’t shot him first. He’s alive, restrained, locked up. He told me he was offered a job, offered money, I don’t know if you’ll be able to get more out of him than I will.”

The Doctor held Clara protectively close, her hearts racing as she sought out Junia - still in Clara’s arms, still safe - and she made sure she could brush her fingers against the child. The infant knew that she was no longer in danger and had cheered up remarkably, and as she felt her mother touching her she happily wriggled around in Clara’s arms, grabbing the Doctor’s fingers and trying to put them in her mouth.

“Are my crew okay?” Stephanie asked gravely, Rizwaan wandering into the room and nodding to save Clara the strength. “They’re fine, the three of them are in the medbay, all conscious. I passed them by now. I could do with a hand patching people up if anyone can help?” He asked, and Graham and Ryan nodded quickly.

“We’ll take Yaz with us.” Ryan said. “Make sure her ankle’s okay too.”

“Good, right, Osma I’m sorry for this delay.” The Doctor said, turning to him and offering him a slight smile. “Two crises in one day, might have to take tomorrow off at this rate.” The Doctor muttered to herself. “We’ll get you to the volcano just as soon as we can be sure that everyone’s safe on this ship. You’ll have plenty of time for your rituals and we still won’t sacrifice anyone. You two stay put now.” She said, getting to her feet and taking a few steps away, before swinging around to look back to Clara. Rizwaan was helping her to her feet, and the Doctor could see even from this distance just how much she was struggling.

“Where is he?”

“Loading bay, near the back of the ship. Be careful.”

“Always.” She said with a cheery wink, before walking to find Javier.

# # #

The Doctor had a number of questions as she found the loading bay. From what she had been told by Clara she could figure out a few basics, but not why someone would be after killing Junia. After the last adventure she could’ve easily guessed it had been the Master, but thinking of the message she’d received from Tecteun and all the implications that arose from it… He had to know,  _ surely  _ he couldn’t still be oblivious to who she was? The Doctor leaned against the doorframe to the loading bay and gave Javier a smile, wiggling her fingers as a hello before speaking to get his attention.

“You look like you’re in a tough spot, Javier.” The Doctor said softly. She knew enough to know that she had the upper hand - she had no reason to be the bad cop. 

“You should be dead.” Javier breathed, glaring at the Doctor. She made a point of looking over her shoulder, pulling a face of surprise and pointing at herself with both hands.

“Me?” She asked. “A lot of people would agree with you, a lot of people would be quite  _ happy  _ if I were dead. I don’t think you’re right though, not time for me to die just yet. Besides, I like this face.” She told him, bringing her hands to her cheeks and smushing them together. “What do you think?”

“Why are you alive?” He spat.

“ _ Because _ my friends are brilliant and smart, and the volcano that I reckon you were banking on killing me hasn’t gone off yet. So, who’s paying you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh come on, the jig’s up!” The Doctor exclaimed, her hands diving into her coat pockets as she walked towards him slowly, her face animated as she looked deep in thought for his enjoyment. “Very hard to figure it out. You told my Clara that someone was paying you, didn’t kill her,  _ and  _ thought she wouldn’t tell me - I’ll have to include this on your performance review. Do you have an assassin yelp?” She asked.

“I don’t know.”

“No I didn’t-- Okay,  _ you got me there _ , I didn’t actually want to know about the assassin yelp.”

“I  _ know _ .” Javier hissed, despite the position he was in he was at the end of his tether with the Doctor. “I don’t know who’s paying me.”

“Well that’s a bit rubbish. You just go around to random people saying  _ hello! I’m an assassin! Here’s my bank details _ ?”

“Two people offered me a job, contracts. One to keep you and your child alive, one to kill you both. The person that wanted you dead offered more money, it was a simple enough request.”

“Oh yeah,  _ very simple _ , that’s why I’m alive chatting to you and you’re dangling around chained up.”

Javier was silent, and the Doctor took that as a signal to keep talking.

“Why did only one of them want me killed, what did the other want from you?”

“Kill the others, keep you and the child safe. They would come for you when they were ready.”

“Brilliant, narrows that right down.” The Doctor said, pausing for a moment before scrunching up her nose. “Doesn’t really, almost every species in the Universe falls into one of those two categories. But why ask  _ you  _ to do it?”

“My family is poor, my parents are dying, I am a desperate man Doctor - I will do what I must to be paid.”

The Doctor hummed, considering his words for a brief moment in silence before she heard a buzz coming from his pocket. She raised her eyebrows, looking at Javier.

“That your boss calling to see if I’m dead? Shall we give ‘em a fright?” She asked. Not waiting for a response she reached into Javier’s pocket, grabbing the communicator and pulling it out happily. Far too happily for a woman about to speak to the person that had ordered a hit on her and her daughter.

“Hello!” She grinned. “Not the voice you were expecting to hear now, was it?”

“Who is this?” A heavily distorted voice came through in response and the Doctor frowned. 

“No, see I say  _ I’m the Doctor _ , then you say  _ Doctor who?  _ That’s how it’s always worked.” The Doctor complained. “Let’s give it a shot.  _ I’m the Doctor _ .”

There was no response - at least not the response the Doctor was looking for - and instead the communicator let an awful screeching sound out as the recipient destroyed their own. The Doctor and Javier both winced at the sound, gritting their teeth and squeezing their eyes shut as the Doctor hurriedly took her sonic from her pocket and muted the device, before throwing it casually aside.

“Not as informative as I’d hoped.” The Doctor said. “I think I’ll leave you there, let you think about the choices you’ve made. If you’d like to repent at any point let me know, we can arrange a dramatic apology.” She told him, turning on her heels and walking away.

# # #

The Doctor found Rizwaan in the medbay as she suspected, seeing him sat beside Clara. She was looking much brighter, her shoulder loosely bandaged, and the two were making Junia laugh as Graham and Ryan sat with Yaz - and for once the Doctor didn’t miss the look that Ryan was giving Celeste. She decided to leave the two of them be and let them continue their conversation, instead focusing on Rizwaan.

“Are you still good to fly this thing? We need to get to the top of the volcano.” The Doctor said, and Clara raised an eyebrow.

“Did you hit your head or something? Doctor, it’s a volcano - if everything’s sorted we should be leaving.”

“I know, but I made a promise. It’ll be quick.” She said, offering a weak smile, and Rizwaan nodded.

“I can still fly.”

“Fantastic. Clara, you stay here and rest up with the others. Junia and I are going to go stop a Human sacrifice.”

“What?!” Clara exclaimed, the Doctor lifting Junia from her arms and holding her close. As the Doctor left a perplexed Clara behind with her friends, Junia’s fingers wiggled over her shoulder to wave Clara goodbye and Rizwaan followed to the cockpit. He didn’t know exactly what was going on, but the Doctor had proven herself to be nothing but trustworthy over the last few hours and he was more than happy to follow her lead.

The Doctor returned to the recreational room to find Stephanie sitting silently, still with handcuffed wrists, and Osma standing guard over her. While he had been awestruck by the ship he had quickly found himself focusing on his duties. A ritual, a sacrifice to the Bracken’s God, and the volcano wouldn’t harm his people. The Doctor crossed the room to sit opposite Stephanie, strapping Junia to her back as she felt the ship take off. 

Looking at Stephanie the Doctor swallowed. She hadn’t figured out a way to save her yet, and she had to. She  _ owed it  _ to her to get her out of this alive. Junia babbled away behind her, not noticing that the situation wasn’t really one to be so loud and  _ joyful  _ sounding in.

“She reminds me of my girls.” Stephanie said. “They were so happy as babies. Still are, at least I hope they are, I’ve been gone for so long they’ll have grown so much already.”

“Why did you leave?” The Doctor asked.

“The same as everyone else, money. Our home has nothing, joining this mission meant that they would be looked after while I worked, and that when I returned we’d have enough money to have whatever we needed in life. There’s no food, no money, no jobs, this was the only chance my family had. I thought I’d finished with space travel in my 30’s but this old woman had to come back.” She chuckled, and the Doctor glanced to Osma - trying to encourage him to see that this woman wasn’t someone that he should kill or sacrifice, but she saw no change in his face.

“I’m sure they’ll be glad their mother comes home early, then.” The Doctor assured her, though she knew time was running out to find a solution.

# # # 

The volcano was smoking heavily at this point, the smell of sulphur strengthening the nearer they got to the top. The Doctor stood with Junia on her back, and Stephanie and Osma at her side as the ship waited a small distance away. The summit of the mountain was rocky but flat and expansive, wide enough for the ship to land rather than just drop them off - and that at least made the getaway a little bit easier. The ground beneath their feet was loose and warm, and the air was hot. There was no snow on the top of the mountain, though they could barely see much further than the ship to confirm that.

“Mother, may I thank you for what you have given to our people over the years. You have shown us strength and courage in the face of war, and today you have shown us unity - you have demonstrated how we can succeed together and you have guided us to show restraint on those that dared to invade our home. Through your guidance, we have reached a peace to last for an eternity. But now, our Dear Mother, we ask for just one last act of assistance.”

“The mountain that we stand on has brought us closer to you, but this mountain threatens our way of life. All signs point to an impending eruption - that this mountain, this  _ volcano _ , desires a gift. Mother, I offer this woman as a sacrifice to the mountain, a gift, and I hope that you will see her worth.”

The Doctor shifted uncomfortably as Osma began to speak of Stephanie as a sacrifice, and she clasped her hands behind her back to avoid doing anything rash. Stephanie stood with her head raised, staring straight ahead of her as stoically as she could. As the Doctor took in a deep breath and Osma continued with his ritual she heard running behind her - then cries of her name. Ryan. The Doctor turned around as she heard him yell, looking to see what he needed, but that wasn’t why he was yelling.

He was trying to warn her.

The Doctor felt herself being pushed before she realised what was happening, before she had time to register Javier’s face and the silent anger that radiated from him. She lost her grip, sliding and slipping on the loose gravel. She had no balance and she fell, disappearing from sight, over the edge of the cliff and into the volcano.


	10. IX.

“Doctor!” Ryan screamed, still running as she disappeared. Osma looked over the edge of the crater, staring below into the mountain, and Stephanie acted swiftly. With her wrists chained together she lifted her arms above Javier’s head and pulled him towards her, positioning the chains at his neck and pulling as tightly as she could - strangling him. 

He fought back. He was stronger than Stephanie and while his hands tried and failed to pull the chains away from his neck his legs were able to twist their bodies around, starting to slow back towards the edge of the crater. 

Stephanie could feel the ground beneath her feet giving way, the flat ground turning into a gradual slope, before there was nothing there at all. Her entire weight was now pressing down on Javier’s neck through her chains and she heard an almighty crack, his neck snapping and his limp body falling back - gravity taking over and the two of them falling.

Ryan raced to the edge of the crater, sliding to a halt and landing on his stomach to look down just in time to see Javier’s body hit the bottom with a thud - though he was far too high up to hear. 

He gazed down, eyes scanning the bottom of the pit to see where the Doctor and Stephanie had landed, desperate for any sign of life even though he knew it would be impossible to survive a fall like that.

“Doctor!” He called hopelessly, the name echoing in his mind. He had no idea how Javier had gotten free and hadn’t been able to catch him in time. If he had, the Doctor would be fine - she’d be standing next to him, she’d be safe. He felt guilt eating away at his stomach. He could’ve saved her, he should’ve saved her. Ryan pressed his forehead against the ground, taking in a breath as he battled away the surging emotions inside him, when he heard a voice.

“Little help down here!”

“Doctor?!” He whispered, poking his head up and shimmying closer to the edge. He looked down and saw her dangling there, Junia strapped to her back and Stephanie holding on to one of her ankles. The Doctor had grabbed onto a rocky outcrop during her fall, and aside from some sore shoulders she looked fine.

“Hi Ryan, give us a hand?” She called up, and Ryan looked behind him. 

“Osma, grab my leg.” He said, nodding his head towards his ankle and letting the Bracken take a tight hold of him. Once he felt certain of the alien’s grip he began to move forward, his breathing shaky as he felt the ground disappear from beneath him. As blood began to rush to his head he reached his arms down towards the Doctor.

“You can lower me a bit.” He called up to Osma, who lowered himself to the ground and - with free hand - he extended his claws to dig into the dirt and gain more stability.

Ryan stretched his arms down as low as he could and once he was within the Doctor’s reach she let go of the rock with one hand, fingers brushing against his once, twice… On the third pass the Doctor’s fingers locked with Ryan’s and she let go of the rock with her other hand. She quickly swung her hand up to grab a tight hold of his wrist, the rock she’d been holding onto falling down into the crater.

The Doctor allowed herself one brief look down to follow it, and she saw cracks beginning to form.

“Pull!” She yelled loudly, and Osma pulled as instructed. As Ryan found himself back on solid ground he began to help, both he and Osma taking one of the Doctor’s hands and pulling her and the Captain to safety as an earth-shattering sound came from below. The ground was splitting apart, the noise echoing around in the crater and, as the Doctor and Stephanie got to their feet, there was only one thing left to do.

“Run!” Stephanie shouted, another boom signalling that there was no more time to wait. The four of them began to run back to the ship, no time to think about what had just happened, as a blast of air hit them and they each stumbled a little. The Doctor grabbed Ryan’s elbow to keep him upright - a fall right now would cost them their lives - and they inched closer to the ship.

“Start the engines!” The Doctor yelled, waving to catch Rizwaan’s attention as heavy rocks started to rain from the sky. The Doctor skidded to a halt at the ramp, letting Osma, Ryan and Stephanie climb aboard first before she joined them. She soniced the button as she ran, the ramp closing while she was still on it and the ship lurched away.

“We need to get everyone in the medbay here, if we get to my ship I can get everyone home.” The Doctor said, turning to Stephanie and sonicking her handcuffs quickly, letting them drop to the floor before she started running to the cockpit to speak with Rizwaan and locate the TARDIS.

“Osma, this is my ship, stay here.” Stephanie said, running with Ryan through the hollow corridors to the medbay. Pumice pelted the outside of the ship and everything suddenly felt very hot. Without windows there was no way to be certain of what was happening outside and right now, Stephanie was relieved. 

“Everyone, up!” She cried, running around the corner and shouting before she’d even managed to reach the medbay. “Layla helped Celeste, Graham held Yaz, Ryan helped Clara.” She instructed. Stephanie ran to Kailan, tucking an arm around him to help him stand. “We’re getting off this ship and to the Doctor’s ship, whatever it is. She promises she can get us home and I trust her - this thing isn’t going to stay ahead of a pyroclastic flow for very long.” She said, refusing to sugar coat the situation in favour of everyone understanding the urgency and following her orders without question. “There’s nothing we need on this ship more than we need to stay alive, everyone go.”

There was no objection, everyone following the orders that Stephanie had barked perfectly. Yaz leaned on Graham, not putting weight on her ankle as he guided her carefully through the ship. It was difficult, the ship banking left and right to avoid trees, maybe debris? They simply didn’t know. 

Alarms started sounding and the Doctor ran around the corner again, screwdriver in front of her and buzzing towards the exit ramp. As the ramp lowered suction began to pull at everyone and it became difficult to stand - but one look at the horizon showed exactly why the Doctor was acting in a way that seemed rash at first glance. The world was dark, the sun completely hidden behind a thick cloud of ash hurtling towards them far faster than the ship could fly - and even faster than they could run. Beneath the billowing cloud of ash was a slower moving - but still formidable - river of thick mud. A lahar, a hot mix of snowmelt, rocks, and ash running directly towards them.

“As soon as we land, everyone in the TARDIS!” The Doctor yelled over the sound of wind rushing by their ears, the deafening sound of ash thundering towards them making it exponentially harder to hear. With every second that passed between the Doctor’s words and the ship landing, people became more and more afraid.

“Ryan--” Graham called, and the younger man looked towards him. “I just want to make sure you know, if this all goes horribly wrong--”

“Now!” The Doctor cried, and the conversation was cut short. As the ship came to a stop on the ground everyone was quick to move, the Doctor deliberately lagging behind to make sure that everyone was moving. Osma, Layla and Celeste were the first to leave the ship. Yaz and Graham followed close behind, the Doctor helping Yaz down the ramp to make sure she didn’t fall. Kailan had gradually become weaker again and Stephanie was carrying him entirely, though he was still conscious in her arms. Clara and Ryan followed, with Rizwaan rounding the corner and sprinting down the ramp. 

Clara, Ryan, Graham and Yaz moved quickly towards the TARDIS, forcing themselves to focus on the ship rather than on the pyroclastic flow bearing down on them, but there was an obvious hesitance from the others.

“It’s bigger on the inside.” The Doctor yelled, Rizwaan running past the group of stunned crew mates without questioning the Doctor, running into the TARDIS after the fam. The Doctor rested a hand on Stephanie’s shoulder, Layla and Celeste beginning to follow after Rizwaan as they felt the ground shaking beneath them.

“Come on, we don’t have time for this.” The Doctor said quietly, Osma running with blind faith into the ship after the women. Sensing that Stephanie’s mind was beginning to catch up with everything that had happened that day the Doctor gave up with trying to coerce her into the TARDIS and instead pushed her. She felt her legs working slowly, independently of her mind as they worked with the Doctor to guide her into the ship. As boots hit the metal floor of the TARDIS the Doctor snapped her fingers and the doors shut behind them, just in time for the sound of rocks hitting the door at high speed, a crowd of people staring around the room they found themselves in as the Doctor, mentally, took a headcount. Everyone that should be there was there. Some perplexed, some injured, some obviously fighting mental battles with themselves… 

The Doctor kept herself moving, if she stopped for too long her brain would catch up with what she was doing, the danger they were all in, and she’d start to question herself.

As she arrived at the console the TARDIS shook, the lahar making an impact outside and briefly echoing into the dimension. Lights began to flash on the console - red and bad - and warnings popped up on the screen as she started to pilot. Short hops were never fun and she gritted her teeth as an alarm blared.

“Yes, I know it’s hot outside, if you could just stop yelling at me then I’ll make sure no one gets vaporized in the heat!” The Doctor replied to the TARDIS, running around the console as she pulled down a lever with all her might - fighting the resistance the machine was putting up.

“Doc, I don’t mean to worry you--” Graham began.

“Whatever’s about to come out of your mouth is the least of my concerns, Graham.” 

“The doors are meltin’!” Ryan yelled and the Doctor looked up, frazzled, her hair drooping in front of her face and her shoulders sagging. 

“Right, of course they are.”

Clara ran to join her at the console, immediately hitting buttons as fast as she could. The set up was different to her own TARDIS but the basics were still the same, and right now the basics were enough to get them to safety.

“Forget about precision, Doctor.” Clara said, pulling down a lever on her own and stepping towards the Doctor, the central column of the TARDIS gearing into motion and the familiar wheezing noise signifying that the TARDIS was in motion. “We can get to where we need to go anytime, for now we just need to be safe.”

Clara’s voice was much calmer now, the alarms dying down and the flashing lights disappearing. Everyone had a chance to breathe a sigh of relief and the Doctor smiled at Clara gently, leaning forwards to press the lightest of kisses to her cheek.

“Whatever would I do without you?” The Doctor asked, a hand moving to brush the skin she’d just kissed before she took a step back and focused back on the task at hand.

“What is this place?” Layla asked, finally having caught her breath.

“This is the TARDIS.” Yaz said, Clara wandering back over to stand with the fam as the Doctor focused on flying. 

“The Doctor’s ship.” Graham added.

“Stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space.” Clara told them.

“It travels through time and space, it can get you all home safely.” Ryan finished, and the crew nodded along slowly. It had just been a tiny blue box when they’d all stepped in, and with everything else that had happened that day it was a lot to process. This moment of quiet was something they were all thankful for - a moment to breathe, to realise that they’d all come away safely except--

“I’ll have to explain Javier.” Stephanie said quietly. “I don’t even know what happened, why he did any of what he did…”

“Don’t worry, I can take care of that.” The Doctor said. “You might be asked to give a few statements of your own but for the most part I think I can handle explaining what happened.” She said, wandering over to the group with a smile on her face, hands planting themselves on her hips. “For now, I’m just going to get everyone back home. Osma, tell me where you’ve evacuated your people to and I can take you there.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” He said with a smile, following her to the console as the fam were left talking to the crew. The Doctor couldn’t help the warm feeling in her chest as she began to pilot the ship once again. People were injured but alive, and before long she would have everyone home safe and sound. As the ship began to fly with the familiar vworp echoing around the Doctor ran her hands over the metal of the console and smiled up at the column.

“Thanks old girl, you’ve done me proud.”


	11. Epilogue.

Osma opened the doors of the TARDIS and stared out with wonder - amazed for the briefest of moments that they really  _ had  _ travelled through space only to find himself taken out of the moment when two little arms wrapped around his waist and he looked down to see Benas on her tiptoes, hugging her father as tightly as she could.

“Daddy!” She said, the smile on her face so wide he could almost miss the relieved tears running down her face. Osma picked her up immediately, holding the young girl close to his chest and smiling as he hugged her.

“Benas, you knew I’d come back for you.” He said gently - as any parent would - but he hadn’t thought that would be possible. He had assumed that he had said goodbye forever, and that he’d done the right thing by keeping her safe. Now that he was back, he had the rest of her life to look forward to and couldn’t be happier. “I’ll always come home.” He whispered, Benas crying gently into his shoulder and holding on as tightly as she physically could.

“You should be far enough away from the volcano to be safe.” The Doctor said, standing in the doorway to the TARDIS and watching as the scene unfolded. “Don’t go back for a while, at least not for a few years.” She told him, Osma turning around as he rubbed his daughter’s back to soothe her and he nodded his thanks.

“Our kind is at peace for the first time in memory, Doctor. We can build something new out of this.  _ Thank you  _ for your help.”

“Anytime. Just be nice the next time Human’s come - even if they’re unannounced.”

“Of course Doctor, thank you.”

The Doctor offered Osma a small wave, before closing the door and allowing him to share a moment of happiness with his daughter before the hard work of rebuilding began. She walked up to the console, feeling much better about how the day was going and the bounce was back in her step as she reached the controls.

“Right then, where’s home? We’ll get Kailan to a hospital and take the rest of you lot home.”

“Vex 5.” Stephanie replied, glancing at Kailan to assess how he was doing. Layla and Celeste were sitting with him, each holding a hand and speaking to him comfortingly. The bullet wound to his leg looked like it was starting to get infected and the Doctor didn’t waste another moment, dancing around the controls.

“Any particular year you fancy getting home?”

“3181, that’s the year it is now. August, if you can - we’ll be reported missing if we’re out of contact for too much longer.”

“ _ Ohh,  _ that makes so much more sense!” The Doctor exclaimed, pulling down a lever and shaking her head to herself. Ahh, the difference a decade could make on a planet like this.

The TARDIS wheezed and whirred in flight once more, and before long they’d landed. The Doctor made sure to be extra careful checking the dates this time, before smiling to herself.

“Vex 5, August 21st 3181, safe and sound.” The Doctor informed them, rolling up her sleeves as she crossed the console room once again and moved to help Layla and Celeste support Kailan. The fact that he was still clinging on to consciousness made it one hell of a lot easier, and as they got to their feet Celeste paused.

“Hang on--” She said, the Doctor taking Kailan’s weight as Celeste walked to stand in front of Ryan. He cleared his throat, a little surprised that she wanted to say goodbye after their brief conversations together, but he gave her a warm smile. “You better come visit.” She said, giving him a smile in return and wrapping her arms around him. Ryan leaned down to return the embrace, taking in a deep breath and squeezing her just a little in his arms.

“Thanks for talking to me.” Celeste said quietly as she pulled away. “I was worried no one would. Y’know, with my face.” She said, pointing to the cuts she’d sustained just hours ago - though it felt like a lifetime had passed.

“Take care of yourself.” Ryan replied, giving her a playful wink as she turned back around with a smile on her face and went back to helping Layla and the Doctor take Kailan into the hospital. The Doctor was only gone for a few minutes, returning alone. 

“Layla and Celeste are staying with Kailan, they’re having their own injuries checked over now though they’ve both assured the doctor’s that they’re fine. Or as fine as can be, I suppose. Who’s next, Rizwaan?”

The man followed the Doctor to the console, giving her an address and waiting impatiently as the TARDIS landed. There was a grin on his face when they did, but a little uncertainty in his eyes.

“Do you mind waiting for just a moment?” Rizwaan asked, and the Doctor gave him a shrug with a gentle smile. 

“It’s a time machine, whatever you need.”

“Just in case she says no.” He told her, taking a deep breath and walking out of the TARDIS as quickly as he could. The Doctor, curious, wandered to the doors of the machine and stood watching, trying not to draw attention to herself as Rizwaan jogged up the path to a small house and knocked on the door. As he waited, Stephanie joined the Doctor and looked up to her as she spoke.

“That’s his girlfriend’s house, Nadia, we met a few times when we were preparing for the mission.” She explained as the doors opened. The woman,  _ Nadia,  _ the Doctor presumed logically, was overjoyed to see Rizwaan back so soon - but before she had the chance to embrace him he kneeled down before her and looked up at her, speaking. From such a distance it was impossible to hear what he was saying, but Nadia’s reaction was enough to make it obvious.

“He’s proposing.” Stephanie said, a smile on her face as she folded her arms across the chest. Nadia nodded enthusiastically and Rizwaan got to his feet - albeit a little shaky now - and the two embraced tightly. While they were too far away to be heard there were obviously tears, shoulders shaking as they clung to each other desperately. Stephanie turned to look at the Doctor as the pair shared a kiss and she raised her eyebrows, daring to nudge the Time Lord in the side gently.

“Wishful thinking, Doctor?” She asked, glancing back to the console and looking at Clara with a knowing smirk. “I’m sure she’d say yes.”

“What?” The Doctor jumped a little, looking around to see the smirk on Stephanie’s face and her gaze falling on Clara. “Oh,  _ no _ , I’d never…”

“Well, maybe you should.” She said simply, before leaving the Doctor standing alone as she rejoined the fam. The Doctor shifted where she stood, seriously considering Stephanie’s words for a moment, before shaking her head and walking up to the console one last time.

“Saved the best for last?” The Doctor asked.

“Of course.” Stephanie replied. “Time to go home.”

# # #

The Doctor watched from a distance again as Stephanie was reunited with her family. Her wife and daughters crying tears of pure joy that she had returned home early. Five years was a long time to be away from those you loved, something the Doctor knew more than most, and she found herself cherishing the scene before her.

“Everyone’s home then?” Clara asked. She’d snuck up beside the Doctor without her noticing and the Doctor looked down to her, the smile on her face felt more like home than anything else did.

“Everyone’s home.” She confirmed happily. Clara took in a breath, as if she were going to say something, before redirecting her attention to Junia. Still strapped to the Doctor’s back she’d fallen fast asleep at some point during their adventure and Clara couldn’t help but laugh.

“It’d take a Dalek invasion to wake this one up.” She joked. “I don’t know how she’s slept through any of that.”

“She must take after her father, then.” The Doctor smiled sadly at her own words before taking a breath, closing the doors and turning back to face the rest of her fam. Ryan and Graham were uninjured and Clara and Yaz had mostly been patched up, and she had faith in her ship to finish the job while she went away to try and explain the situation regarding Javier, the volcano, and the Bracken as best she could. 

“Right you lot, you need fixing up and  _ then  _ I think it’s time for you to head home for a little while - you normally do. Families, home for tea, Human stuff. What do you say, pick you up in about a week?”

“Sounds good to me.” Yaz said with a smile.

“And me.” Ryan grinned.

The Doctor looked to Graham and he nodded, giving an unconvincing thumbs up.

“Sorted.” She said, not looking away from him - inferring that there’d be a conversation before he left the TARDIS. Graham nodded again with a pursed smile, before the Doctor focused on the console, typing in coordinates and silently gesturing for Clara to take the lead with them. Clara smiled behind her back, her eyes lingering for just a moment - long enough for the fam to notice the way she looked at her - before clasping her hands together.

“Right then,  _ team _ , fixing up. Doctor’s orders.” She grinned, gesturing for the three to start walking ahead of her before she followed along behind. She lingered a few paces back, her mind thinking back to the raven she’d encountered. It was  _ the  _ raven, she was certain, and whatever the Master had done to her had a lasting impact. But the raven hadn’t hit her, it had flickered and disappeared, left her in shock and terrified but  _ alive _ . She swallowed, reaching a hand forward and lightly tapping on Graham’s shoulder. Yaz and Ryan continued walking, knowing the TARDIS  _ fairly well  _ at this point, and Clara spoke to Graham quietly.

“Can you check something for me?” She asked.

“Course, what’s up?”

“What does this say?”

Clara turned around, lifting her hair up with both her hands and holding it so it didn’t obscure the numbers. It felt like just yesterday the Doctor’s former self had looked there, desperate, only to see that they still existed - that she wasn’t free.

“I don’t know.” Graham said honestly. “It’s like… It’s glitchin’. It says one number, then flickers onto another. Keeps doin’ it.”

Clara nodded, moving her hands and dropping her hair back down to cover the numbers. She wasn’t sure if she should talk to the Doctor about it - she wasn’t sure she could bear to cause the Doctor the same pain again - and turned around to give Graham a smile.

“Thanks.” She said, straining a smile. “Don’t tell the Doctor. Come on.” And she gestured a hand forwards, trying to move the subject on. Graham wasn’t going to push her any further, but he knew he’d be keeping an eye on her. He might not be the Doctor but he could see that this woman meant an awful lot to her, and if he could stop something awful from happening he would.

Clara followed Graham again, rejoining Yaz and Ryan in the TARDIS’s medical facilities, and the conversation was almost enough to distract her from the sound of a raven calling in her mind.

Almost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone reading along - seriously it means the world. And the reassurances yesterday were lovely. I really was going to continue this series, but some real life stuff has happened at the same time and so I'm orphaning my account just to try and stay safe. Sorry that I couldn't conclude this series, but I thought I could at least post the end of this fic for the few still reading.
> 
> Take care of yourselves, love you all to bits.


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